Singapore's manufacturing output up 6.2% last month

Singapore's manufacturing output in December rose by 6.2 percent year on year, out of the market expectation and also up from a 4 percent growth in November, the city state's Economic Development Board said on Friday. Excluding biomedical manufacturing, output increased by a stronger pace of 12.1 percent on year. The expansion was mainly due to a strong growth in the electronics sector. On a seasonally adjusted month-on-month basis, manufacturing output rose by 5.2 percent in December, after a 2.8 percent contraction in November. Excluding biomedical manufacturing, output grew 5 percent. For the whole year, manufacturing output rose by 1.7 percent in 2013 compared to 2012. In particular cluster, output of the electronics cluster grew at a double-digit rate of 22.2 percent year on year in December, supported by double-digit growths in the data storage and semiconductors segments, with annual growth rates of 32 percent and 25.7 percent respectively. The government said it was due in part to the low base in December of 2012 when electronics demand was weak. Output of the electronics cluster in 2013 rose 3.5 percent compared to 2012. Output of the transport engineering cluster rose 13.8 percent year on year in December, while the growth rate for the whole year registered at 5.2 percent. The chemicals output increased 6.4 percent on year in December. The specialties segment expanded 14.1 percent on account of higher regional demand, while petrochemicals output grew 12.7 percent on the back of new production capacities. On the contrary, the biomedical manufacturing cluster contracted 14.9 percent in December. For the whole year of 2013, output of the biomedical manufacturing cluster was unchanged from a year ago.