Singapore factory output down 6.9% in April in 7th straight month of contraction

SINGAPORE’S factory output fell a surprising 6.9 per cent year on year in April, marking the seventh straight month of contraction as the electronics segment continued to be the main drag on growth, data from the Singapore Economic Development Board (EDB) showed on Friday (May 26).

April’s contraction was higher than March’s revised figure of a 3.8 per cent fall, and worse than the 4.5 per cent decline that private-sector economists polled by Bloomberg were expecting.

Excluding the biomedical cluster, which is typically volatile, factory output fell 6.1 per cent year on year in April.