Singapore’s industrial production declined at a faster-than-expected pace in July, preliminary figures from the Economic Development Board showed Wednesday.
Industrial production fell sharply by 6.1 percent year-over-year in July, exceeding economists’ expectations for a 4.0 percent decrease.
In June production had dropped the same 4.0 percent. The index has been falling since September 2014.
Excluding biomedical manufacturing, output dipped 4.1 percent in July from a year ago.
Among components, the biomedical manufacturing cluster’s output plunged 13.4 percent annually in June and that for transport engineering cluster went down by 6.1 percent.
Output of the electronics cluster slid 5.8 percent in June and the precision engineering cluster’s output decreased by 6.2 percent. Output of the general manufacturing industries cluster also slipped 3.2 percent.
At the same time, chemicals cluster’s output grew 4.4 percent, led by the specialties and petroleum segments, which recorded growth of 8.6 percent and 5.9 percent, respectively.
Month-on-month, industrial production climbed a seasonally adjusted 1.0 percent in July, reversing a 2.8 percent fall in the preceding month. Economists had expected a 2.3 percent increase for the month.
The material has been provided by InstaForex Company – www.instaforex.com