Singapore industrial production declined at a slower-than-expected pace in December, figures from the Economic Development Board revealed Monday.
Industrial production fell 1.9 percent year-on-year in December, much slower than economists' forecast for a 4.0 percent sharp decline. Excluding biomedical manufacturing, output declined by 2.1 percent.
It was the second successive decline in production. In November, production dropped 2.1 percent.
In the whole year 2014, total manufacturing output climbed 2.6 percent compared to the previous year.
Among the components, output of the precision engineering cluster jumped 10.9 percent in December from a year ago. At the same time, biomedical manufacturing cluster's output dropped by 1.0 percent.
The chemicals cluster's output also contracted 2.7 percent annually in December. Electronic cluster reported a 2.4 percent drop and general manufacturing slid 4 percent. Similarly, output of the transport engineering was down 6.8 percent.
On a monthly basis, industrial output gained a seasonally adjusted 1.8 percent in December, in contrast to a 1.0 percent fall in the prior month. Economists had forecast a 1.4 percent growth for the month.
Excluding biomedical manufacturing, output increased 1.5 percent.
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