Guess which clusters dragged Singapore's manufacturing activity

How bad was their performance?

According to UOB Economic-Treasury Research, Singapore’s May industrial production (IP) posted a growth of 2.1% y/y (+1.2% m/m SA), beating consensus estimates of a smaller 0.1% growth. 

This month’s growth continued the strong 4.7% y/y growth seen a month ago. Excluding the biomedical manufacturing cluster, IP turned the other way and declined 2.4%y/y (+1.0% m/m SA).

Here's more from the UOB Economic-Treasury Research:

Although the growth contributions coming from biomedical, electronics, and general manufacturing turned out well, overall manufacturing activity was dragged down mainly by the transport and precision engineering clusters.

After a stellar 41.9% y/y growth in April, output in the biomedical manufacturing cluster continued another month of expansion by growing 22.8% y/y this month, supported by higher production of active pharmaceutical ingredients.

In addition, the medical technology segment also grew 10.7% y/y. On a year-to-date basis, this biomedical manufacturing is the best performing cluster as it grew by 7.1% y/y.