Singapore's manufacturing output up 2.9 pct in April

Singapore's manufacturing output increased 2.9 percent in April on a yearly basis, said the country's Economic Development Board (EDB) on Thursday.

Excluding biomedical manufacturing, manufacturing output fell marginally by 0.1 percent year-on-year, according to an EDB press release.

On a seasonally adjusted month-on-month basis, manufacturing output increased 4.8 percent in April compared with the previous month. Excluding biomedical manufacturing, the output grew 5.1 percent.

Output of the biomedical manufacturing cluster grew 14.9 percent in April on a year-on-year basis. Among them, the pharmaceuticals segment grew 17.7 percent on the back of a different mix of active pharmaceutical ingredients produced. The medical technology segment's output also increased 5.4 percent due to higher export demand for medical devices.

Output of the electronics cluster increased 10.9 percent in April 2016 compared to the same month last year. The semiconductor segment's output increased 24.2 percent but this was partially offset by declines in the rest of the electronic segments. In the first four months of this year, output of the electronics cluster grew 4.9 percent compared to the same period last year.

The chemicals cluster's output fell 4.3 percent on a year-on-year basis. The other chemicals segment recorded an increase of 11.5 percent, on account of higher production of fragrances. However, this was offset by contractions in the specialties, petroleum and petrochemicals segments, according to EDB. Endit