Manufacturing output increased 51% in April 2010

The said year-on-year increase was driven by 95.8% surge in output of the biomedical manufacturing cluster.

According to the Economic Development Board (EDB), the growth seen by the biomedical manufacturing cluster was attributed to the 101.7% rise in the pharmaceuticals segment. The cluster next in line in terms of growth was the electronics cluster, with output increase of 60% in April 2010 on a year-on-year basis.

The EDB report said, "The semiconductors segment posted strong growth of 97.8% as global demand for electronics remained strong. The other electronic modules & components, infocomms & consumer electronics and computer peripherals segments also recorded output growth of 34.1%, 8.7% and 7.5% respectively."

Other clusters that saw year-on-year increase in manufacturing output were the precision engineering cluster (56.2%), the chemicals cluster (24.8%), and the general manufacturing cluster (17%).

There was decline, however, in the marine & offshore segment (39.3%) while the transport engineering cluster’s output dropped 23.2% in April 2010 on a year-on-year basis.