Singapore experienced a rebound in industrial production growth, following a significant slowdown in the two preceding months, according to preliminary figures released by the Economic Development Board on Thursday.
In November, industrial production increased by 8.5% year-on-year, an improvement from the 1.2% rise observed in October, which marked the slowest growth since the upward trend began in July. This figure, however, fell short of the anticipated 10.0% growth rate.
When excluding the biomedical manufacturing sector, industrial production surged by 13.0% in November, a substantial rise from the mere 0.4% seen in the previous month.
On a month-to-month comparison, industrial production saw a marginal decrease of 0.4% in November, following a slight uptick of 0.1% in October.
Breaking it down by sectors, the electronics cluster witnessed a remarkable 26.2% annual increase in output in November, while precision engineering recorded a modest rise of 0.6%, largely driven by heightened production of front-end semiconductor equipment.
Conversely, the biomedical manufacturing sector experienced a significant downturn, with output plummeting by 21.2% from the previous year. Meanwhile, the general manufacturing output also fell, registering a 2.6% decline.