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Thursday, November 26, 2020 – 1:00 pm
SINGAPORE’s factory output fell 0.9 percent year-on-year in October with a drop in electronics production, confusing economists’ expectations of 7.3 percent growth, figures from the Singapore Economic Development Board.
It was a sea change from September’s revised growth figure of 25.6 percent, which had been driven by the volatile biomedical group and a strong performance from electronics.
Excluding biomedical manufacturing, October’s drop was even more pronounced, at 2.7%. On a seasonally adjusted monthly basis, manufacturing production decreased 19 percent, or 2.9 percent excluding biomedical manufacturing.
Only two groups saw production increase year-over-year in October: precision engineering, 10.6 percent, and biomedical manufacturing, 10.2 percent.
The electronics group’s performance varied sharply from a 33.1 percent rise in September to a 0.6 percent drop last month.
The growth in the segment of computer peripherals and data storage (20.2%), as well as in other modules and electronic components (16%), was not enough to offset the falls in semiconductors (2%) and infocomms and electronics of consumption (2.5 percent).
The chemical group’s production fell 0.8 percent. While the petrochemicals and specialty segments experienced increases of 3.3% and 11.8% respectively, the other chemical and petroleum segments contracted due to plant maintenance shutdowns and lower export orders amid the pandemic.
Manufacturing in general remained in decline, with a 12.8 percent drop and all segments registering declines. During the first 10 months of the year, the overall manufacturing group output also fell 12.8 percent compared to the prior year period.
Transportation engineering was the worst performer again, falling 31.8 percent year-on-year. Although the land segment grew by 13.9%, declines persisted in the aerospace sector (-37.1%), as well as in marine and offshore engineering (-38.7%), with new orders affected by restrictions on travel and the weak global oil and gas market.
So far this year, the transport engineering group’s production has fallen by 24.9% year-on-year.
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