Sept factory output up; economists unsure if strong data will hold

Singapore

THE explosion of interest in Samsung Note 7s and Apple iPhone 7s seems to be the bright spark in Singapore's third-quarter economic growth estimates, for now. On the flip side of the coin, economists are wondering how long this can last, as they toned down their fourth-quarter growth estimates.

Data from the Economic Development Board showed on Wednesday that September's industrial production, driven by a huge output from the biomedical and electronics clusters, surged with a 6.7 per cent year-on-year (YoY) growth. One market poll had put the median consensus at only 1 per cent.