Singapore's November industrial output expands 3.1%

Singapore's industrial production in November grew by 3.1 percent on year, higher than the 2.1 percent contraction in October, the city-state's Economic Development Board (EDB) said on Wednesday. The expansion was mainly due to the double-digit year-on-year output increase of 12.9 percent in biomedical manufacturing cluster. Excluding biomedical manufacturing, output grew 0.9 percent in November year on year. In particular, both the pharmaceuticals and medical technology segments recorded higher output. The pharmaceuticals segment gained 13.2 percent thanks to a higher value-added mix of active pharmaceutical ingredients produced, while at the same time, robust export demand for medical devices contributed to the 11.9 percent growth in the medical technology segment. Chemicals cluster saw an increase of 5.2 percent on year in November, with 0.2 percent and 2.9 percent annual growth rate in petroleum and petrochemical segments respectively. "The specialty chemicals segment expanded 10.8 percent, attributed to higher regional demand for food chemicals and fuel additives," the EDB added. However, the city-state's electronics cluster still suffered output down by 2.3 percent on year, although easing from the contraction of 6.0 percent in October. The data storage segment saw considerable annual surge of 82.0 percent, mainly due to the low base last year, when floods in Thailand caused a disruption in the supply chain for data storage products. In total, the output of the electronics cluster in the first eleven months declined 11. 1 percent annually. On a month-on-month seasonally adjusted basis, the manufacturing output expanded 1.9 percent in November.