In the latest report, Singapore's manufacturing output for the month of January had dropped as high as 3.1 percent from around the same time over a year ago. Per sources, the drop in output is mainly caused by recent slumps in clusters, such as those common in precision engineering and electronics.
According to data provided by the Economic Development Board (EDB) for the month of February, overall output fell around 5.9 percent. These findings exclude biomedical manufacturing. However, EDB also added that when put on a month-on-month basis that's seasonally adjusted, overall manufacturing output has managed to increase by 0.9 percent.
Additionally, based on these numbers, the output actually expanded back in December by 2.7 percent, as well as 7.6 percent in November, when compared to last year's numbers.
This, however, is not enough to make up for the recent drop.
Manufacturing Drop
Following suit, the electronic cluster, and all of its segments dropped as high as 13.7 percent. In contrast, some of the electronic modules and components segment was able to keep their numbers and output. All else, however, recorded a drop.
The precision engineering cluster also went through some similar results, posting a lower output that just reaches 15.7 percent as compared to where it was a year ago.
Meanwhile, the machinery and systems segment fell a staggering 20.8 percent as a result of semiconductor equipment getting a decrease in production. In contrast, the precision modules and components only fell around 7.4 percent.
Lastly, the petrochemicals and specialties segment went down at 1.8 and 3.2 percent.
Increases
Not all of the clusters went down the same path however, as some were able to do quite well for the month running, and has overall received some increases. Topping this list is transport engineering, whose output was able to increase by 20.2 percent on a year-on-year basis.
The marine and offshore engineering segment also made great progress, expanding 26.9 percent. Just behind it is the aerospace segment, which managed to increase its overall output by 17.4 percent.
The segment for biomedical manufacturing also managed to grow 5.8 percent, while, due to festive demand, the food, beverages, and tobacco segment managed to climb up 4.6 percent.
However, per EDB, the printing segment fell down by as much as 11.5 percent.
Lastly, the output of the chemical cluster rose by 2 percent, coming just behind the "other chemicals" segment, which gained an increase of as much as 18.2 percent.
