Interestingly, the decline in May’s factory output bucked the 7.7% expansion tipped by analysts in a Bloomberg poll. However, the latest data marks the republic’s worst year-on-year performance on record since 1983. It also surpasses the 1.1% contraction registered in February, which had previously been named the biggest fall.
SINGAPORE (June 26): Singapore’s factory output snapped out of the green with a 7.4% year-on-year contraction in May, following a broad-based contraction in almost all clusters. The dip comes despite a continued surge in biomedical manufacturing, which has been on an uptrend since the Covid-19 pandemic broke out.
Excluding the biomedical cluster, output plummeted 10.4%, according to data released by the Singapore Economic Development Board (EDB), a government agency under the Ministry of Trade and Industry (MTI).
