SINGAPORE, March 27 (Xinhua) -- Singapore's manufacturing output fell 1.3 percent year-on-year in February, reversing a seven-month growth trend, the Singapore Economic Development Board said in a report released on Wednesday.
Meanwhile, excluding biomedical manufacturing, output saw a slight increase of 0.3 percent.
On a seasonally adjusted month-on-month basis, manufacturing output declined 7.5 percent in February, with a sharper drop of 7.9 percent when excluding biomedical manufacturing.
The decline was primarily driven by the electronics and biomedical manufacturing sectors, which saw year-on-year output contractions of 6.4 percent and 14.3 percent, respectively.
Within the electronics cluster, the infocomms and consumer electronics segment expanded significantly by 32.2 percent. However, other segments saw declines, including computer peripherals and data storage by 1.5 percent, other electronics modules and components by 7.3 percent, and semiconductors by 9.5 percent.
In biomedical manufacturing, the medical technology segment grew 12.4 percent on the back of strong export demand for medical devices. Conversely, pharmaceutical output plummeted 30.0 percent due to a different mix of active pharmaceutical ingredients and lower production of biological products compared to a year ago.
Among other sectors, precision engineering and transport engineering posted growth, while chemicals and general manufacturing saw slight declines. ■