SINGAPORE: Singapore’s industrial output in October unexpectedly declined 0.9% on-year, missing economists’ forecasts, with biomedical and electronics manufacturing cooling from the pace marked in the previous month, official data showed on Thursday.
Economists had expected a 6.2% increase in October, according to the median in a Reuters poll. The data was a sharp drop from September when factory output grew a revised 25.6% — the fastest in nearly a decade.
Electronics output fell 0.6% year-on-year, compared with a 33.1% growth in the previous month, data from the Singapore Economic Development Board showed.
The biomedical sector, which is typically volatile, slowed to a growth of 10.2% from September’s 91.2% surge.
However, analysts said they expect manufacturing to pick up again in coming months.
“The electronic sector will still improve, because (of) the structural shift caused by the pandemic,” said Lee Ju Ye, an economist at Maybank Kim Eng.
On a month-on-month and seasonally adjusted basis, industrial production fell 19% in October. Economists had expected an 11.9% contraction.
“Although manufacturing production did give up some of its recent gains in October, we view this as a pause rather than a change in trend,” JP Morgan economist Sin Beng Ong said.
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