Singapore manufacturing output up 5.3% in Nov even as pharma tumbles

SINGAPORE (Dec 26): Singapore’s manufacturing output increased by 5.3% year-on-year in November, some 2.8 percentage points below economists’ expectations as pharmaceuticals output dived 31.1%.

The decline in pharmaceuticals manufacturing, which was attributed to a different product-mix being produced, dragged output for the biomedical manufacturing cluster down 23.3% from a year ago.

“We are forecasting another contraction in this cluster for December, mainly due to the very high base registered in December 2016. On-year gains in this cluster could possibly be seen then in 1H 2018,” says UOB Group economist Francis Tan in a macro note on Tuesday.

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