FX.co ★ Singapore Industrial Production Registers Sharp Decline In August

Singapore's industrial production registered a double-digit contraction in August, the Economic Development Board reported Tuesday.

Industrial output declined 12.1 percent on a yearly basis in August, following a 1.1 percent drop in July. Production has been falling since October 2022. The annual fall was also bigger than economists' forecast of 3.1 percent decrease.

Excluding biomedical manufacturing, industrial production plunged 13.3 percent from a year ago.

Month-on-month, manufacturing output slid 10.5 percent in August, in contrast to the 3.7 percent increase in July.

Data showed that biomedical manufacturing output decreased 1.8 percent from the last year as production of the pharmaceuticals segment contracted 5.6 percent on account of a different mix of active pharmaceutical ingredients being produced compared to a year ago, data showed.

By contrast, transport engineering output surged 16.2 percent in August underpinned by the 29.4 percent rise in the marine and offshore engineering segment.

Chemical output fell 5.9 percent in August driven by the weakness in petrochemicals, petroleum and specialties segments. Likewise, general manufacturing output slid 6.1 percent in August.

Precision engineering output logged an annual fall of 14.4 percent. Due to lower production of semiconductor-related equipment, the machinery & systems segment declined 12.0 percent.

At the same time, output of electronics cluster decreased sharply by 20.0 percent.

On a three-month moving average basis, manufacturing output decreased 6.6 percent in August compared to a year ago.