Manufacturing output falls 1.9% in December

SINGAPORE — Manufacturing output fell 1.9 per cent in December compared to a year ago, data released today (Jan 26) by the Economic Development Board (EDB) showed.

However, the contraction was not as dismal as economists had expected, following November’s figures, where output shrank 2.8 per cent on-year, marking the sector’s worst performance of the year so far. An earlier survey from a Reuters poll showed that economists had expected output for December to shrink by 3.9 per cent.

For the full year last year, manufacturing output rose 2.6 per cent compared to a year ago, said the EDB. Excluding biomedical manufacturing, output for December fell by 2.1 per cent.

Among the worst performing clusters were electronics, chemicals, general manufacturing products, transport engineering and biomedical manufacturing.