SINGAPORE — The Republic’s manufacturing output increased by 5.3 per cent last month year-on-year, below analysts’ expectations.

Nevertheless, the performance was dragged down by the volatile biomedical manufacturing sector, which contracted by 23.3 per cent, based on data released by the Singapore Economic Development Board (EDB) on Tuesday (Dec 26).

Excluding this sector, the overall output went up by 13.9 per cent in November, compared to the same period last year.

Earlier, Reuters had polled 11 analysts who expected Singapore’s manufacturing output to expand by 9 per cent.

EDB data showed the electronic cluster posting the most robust growth, expanding 27.6 per cent last month. This was driven by the semiconductors, computer peripherals, and infocomms and consumer electronics segments which posted growth of 36.4 per cent, 20.7 per cent and 16.2 per cent, respectively. Between January and last month, electronics output soared 37.1 per cent compared to the same period last year.

The precision engineering cluster grew by 19.9 per cent while the chemicals cluster’s output increased by 7.5 per cent.

Production by the general manufacturing industries cluster increased 1.7 per cent, with the food, beverages and tobacco segment growing by 6.6 per cent.

Apart from biomedical manufacturing which contracted on the back of a different product-mix being produced, the transport engineering cluster also shrank.

Overall output for the transport engineering cluster fell by 8.3 per cent. The aerospace segment grew by a third with more repair and maintenance jobs from commercial airlines, but this was offset by declines in the land transport and marine and offshore engineering segments, which fell 19.9 per cent and 31.9 per cent respectively.