Barnabas Gan, Economist at UOB Group, comments on the latest Industrial Production figures in Singapore.

Key Takeaways

“Singapore’s industrial production contracted in September 2021 by 3.4% y/y (-2.8% m/m sa), as compared to August’s growth of 11.0% y/y (+5.6% m/m sa)… Accounting for the latest data, Singapore’s manufacturing grew 11.9% year-to-date.”

“Despite the year-on-year contraction in overall industrial production, we note that the bulk of the fall was led primarily by the volatile biomedical manufacturing cluster.”

“On the flip side, the rest of the manufacturing segments rose broadly in tandem with the recovery in Singapore’s economic fundamentals.”

“We maintain our full-year manufacturing growth outlook at 8.0% in 2021 with upside risks, as compared to 2020’s expansion of 7.5%. Given Singapore’s export-oriented nature, the expansion in export demand seen year-to-date is expected to persist for the rest of 2021. This suggests that manufacturing momentum will likely stay supported, on the back of healthy global semiconductor demand, which would benefit the electronic and precision engineering clusters.”