At the close of the year, Singapore's industrial production witnessed a notable expansion, as indicated by the preliminary figures released by the Economic Development Board on Friday. In December, industrial output rose by 10.6% compared to the same month the previous year. This marked a slight deceleration from November's 10.8% increase but exceeded the anticipated rise of 6.4%. Notably, production has been on an upward trajectory since July.
When excluding the biomedical manufacturing sector, industrial production mirrored a 10.6% annual rise in December, though this was less than the substantial 16.0% growth seen in November.
On a month-to-month basis, industrial production experienced a slight decline of 0.7% in December, following a 1.7% recovery in November.
Breaking down by sector, the transport engineering cluster saw a 16.0% increase in output compared to December of the previous year, while the electronics sector exhibited a 14.3% growth. Biomedical manufacturing also posted significant gains, with a 9.4% rise fueled by the strength of the pharmaceuticals segment.
The data further highlighted a 3.9% expansion in the precision engineering sector from the previous year, alongside a 3.7% growth in general manufacturing output.
For the entirety of 2024, industrial production overall was up by 4.3% compared to the prior year.
