Down and out: Struggling manufacturing sector drags overall growth in 2014

Don’t expect a rebound anytime soon.

The manufacturing sector remained the weakest link in Singapore’s less-than-rosy 2014 GDP print. Advanced GDP estimates state that the local economy grew by 2.8% last year, down from 3.9% in 2013.

According to DBS, the manufacturing sector was the biggest drag last year following a 2% year-on-year contraction on a ccount of the declines in the output of the transport engineering, electronics and general manufacturing clusters.

"External headwinds remain strong. The manufacturing sector has to contend with structural hollowing out in the electronics cluster as well as the upcoming Chinese New year effect. Plainly, outlook in the near term is unlikely to improve significantly," stated DBS.