Singapore's industrial production declined at the fastest pace in seven months in March, data from the Economic Development Board revealed on Friday.
Industrial production declined 9.2 percent year-on-year in March, reversing 4.4 percent growth in February. The expected fall was 1.5 percent.
Further, this was the steepest drop since August 2023, when production had risen 12.9 percent.
Excluding bio-medical manufacturing, industrial production contracted 5.9 percent annually in March after a 2.0 percent gain in the previous month.
On a monthly basis, industrial production decreased sharply by 16.0 percent in March, after a 14.6 percent strong recovery in the prior month.
Among the major clusters, production in the biomedical engineering segment declined the most by 34.3 percent annually in March, followed by electronics output with a 11.3 percent drop. Meanwhile, output produced in the chemicals segment showed an increase of 4.2 percent.
Economic News