Singapore's manufacturing output falls 5.5% in November

SINGAPORE'S manufacturing output declined 5.5 per cent year-on-year in November, dragged down by a weaker transport engineering cluster and a fall in electronics output.

Transport engineering output fell 11.2 per cent year-on-year in November, while electronics production dropped 11.1 per cent.

Excluding the biomedical manufacturing cluster, output fell by a larger 6.4 per cent, said the Economic Development Board (EDB) on Thursday.

The electronics cluster, which retains the largest weight of 33.4 per cent on the index, stayed in contraction mode again in November. All electronics segments - except for data storage and other electronic modules & components - registered output declines. Computer peripherals output fell 22.8 per cent.

The transport engineering cluster, which accounts for 15.9 per cent of the index, was dragged by the 20.7 per cent fall in land engineering as well as a 20.1 per cent fall in marine & offshore engineering.

The second largest component on the index, biomedical manufacturing, slid 1.3 per cent in output, due to a 9 per cent drop in the pharmaceuticals segment.

The best-performing cluster was chemicals, which rose 11.6 per cent in November from a year ago.

"The petroleum and petrochemicals segments grew 20.9 per cent and 12.2 per cent respectively, due to the low base effect last year as some plants shut down for maintenance. The specialities segment grew 12.2 per cent, on the back of expanded production," EDB said, adding that the other chemicals segment declined 6 per cent as a result of lower demand for glass products.

After adjusting for seasonal factors, industrial production fell 3.6 per cent month-on-month in November. If biomedical manufacturing is excluded, output would have slid one per cent.