Singapore's manufacturing output decreased for the second consecutive month in November, although the decline was not as severe as many economists had feared.
The Economic Development Board said on Friday manufacturing output declined 7.5% in November from the previous year. Economists had predicted an annual drop of 16.1%.
After adjusting for seasonal factors, manufacturing output rose 6.2% month-on-month in November due to higher level of production in the biomedical-manufacturing cluster.
Electronic output contracted 19.4% annually, while production of the engineering cluster shrank 19.1%. General manufacturing industries' output dipped 1.7% in November. The output of food, beverages and tobacco industries grew 6.7%, while the printing segment's output shrank 13.4%.
The chemical cluster reported a 20.1% annual decrease in November. The board noted that the petrochemical segment showed a 31.6% decrease in production due to a fall in export orders and maintenance shutdown. There were temporary shutdowns in the specialties segment due to weak external demand.
On the other hand, biomedical and transport engineering segments' output rose 14.9% and 5.2%, respectively in November.
The three-month moving average year-on-year industrial production index for November fell 5.5% over the same period last year. Cumulative manufacturing output for the first eleven months of 2008, fell 3.3% from the previous year.
In November, the trade ministry had lowered the current-year growth forecast to 2.5%, after the economy slipped into recession in the third quarter for the first time since 2002. The ministry had said the economic downturn is expected to last for several quarters, well into 2009. The government predicted that the economy could contract 1% or grow up to 2% in 2009.
The government had said it would not seek to reduce the deficit by trimming its expenditure or raising additional revenues. Finance Minister Tharman Shanmugaratnam said on November 18 that the budget deficit would be nearly three times more than the estimated S$800 million in fiscal year 2008 on higher expenditure.
Meanwhile, there are good tidings on the inflation front. Inflationary pressures on the economy eased after reaching a 26-year high of 7.5% recorded in each of the month of the second quarter. The consumer price index rose 5.5% year-on-year in November, tamer than the 6.4% rate in the previous month.
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