Singapore Q1 GDP expected to be upgraded with better-than-expected March factory output

ALTHOUGH Singapore's factory output in March eased from the previous month, the better-than-expected performance is expected to improve the Republic's first-quarter economic growth.

Industrial production (IP) last month slowed to 3.4 per cent year on year - dragged by the biomedical cluster - after a 17.5 per cent jump in February, data from the Singapore Economic Development Board (EDB) on Tuesday (Apr 26) showed. Excluding the typically volatile biomedical manufacturing sector, output grew 9.7 per cent year on year.

On a seasonally adjusted month-on-month basis however, manufacturing output fell 12.6 per cent, while the figure is 6.1 per cent excluding biomedical manufacturing.