Singapore’s manufacturing beats forecast with 14.3% expansion in December; achieves 7.3% growth for 2020
Singapore’s manufacturing output rose 14.3 per cent year-on-year in December, beating estimates and bringing overall growth for 2020 to 7.3 per cent. Economists polled by Reuters had forecast an 11.5% increase in December.
December’s industrial production was boosted by electronics, chemicals and precision engineering. Excluding biomedical manufacturing, output increased 19.8 per cent in December, the Economic Development Board (EDB) said on Tuesday. The growth in December follows a revised 18.7 per cent expansion in November, instead of the 17.9 per cent previously reported. On a seasonally adjusted month-on-month basis, manufacturing output increased 2.4 per cent in December. Economists had expected a 0.6 per cent contraction. Excluding biomedical manufacturing, output grew 8.2 per cent month-on-month.
Electronics manufacturing output soared 41.8 per cent in December compared to the same month in 2019, with a 51 per cent expansion in the semiconductor segment leading the charge, supported by 5G markets and helped by a low production base from a year before. The computer peripherals and data storage segment also grew 9.3 per cent. Overall, the output of the electronics cluster grew by 11.9 per cent in 2020 compared to 2019.
