Singapore’s manufacturing production growth tops estimates

Singapore’s manufacturing output has increased at an annualized rate of 2.9% in May, while rebounding from a 1.2% drop in April.

The latest data exceeded market consensus of a 2% growth.

In May, production rebounded for electronics (20.1% YoY after a 1.1% YoY slump in April).

In the meantime, output growth picked up for chemicals (7.9% YoY versus 3% YoY in April), but slowed for transport engineering (7.8% YoY versus 11.4% YoY in April).

In May, production shrank for biomedical manufacturing (-42.6% YoY versus -27.7% YoY in April), precision engineering (-8.3% YoY versus 3.8% YoY growth in April) and for general manufacturing industries (-4.4% YoY versus 7.6% YoY growth in April).

In monthly terms, the nation’s manufacturing output expanded 1.1% in May, while slowing from a revised up 7.5% surge in April.

The Singapore Dollar was 0.22% weaker against its US counterpart on Wednesday, with the USD/SGD currency pair last trading at 1.3573.

The exotic Forex pair was holding near highs last seen in early May.