Singapore Industrial Production Falls More Than Expected In November

(RTTNews) - Singapore's industrial production decreased at a faster-than-expected pace in November, preliminary figures from the Economic Development Board showed Thursday.

Industrial production dipped 5.5 percent year-over-year in November, exceeding economists' expectations for a 3.0 percent drop.

In October, production had fallen 4.7 percent. Production has been falling since September last year.

Excluding biomedical manufacturing, output declined 6.4 percent in November from a year ago.

Among components, output of the transport engineering cluster plunged 11.2 percent annually in November and the electronics cluster's output went down by 11.1 percent.

The general manufacturing cluster's output decreased 4.3 percent and the output of the precision engineering cluster slipped by 4.3 percent.

At the same time, output of the chemicals cluster surged 11.6 percent yearly in November, driven by the growth in the petroleum and petrochemicals segments.

On a monthly basis, industrial production fell a seasonally adjusted 3.6 percent in November, reversing a 2.9 percent rise in October.

Economists had forecast a 0.7 percent increase for the month. It was the first decline in three months.