MANUFACTURING output increased by 14.4 per cent last month on a year-on-year (y-o-y) basis.

 

And excluding the volatile biomedical manufacturing cluster, output increased by 23.9 per cent.

 

The electronics cluster saw the biggest jump with a 57.3 per cent increase in output last month (y-o-y).

The Singapore Economic Development Board (EDB) attributed this to higher demand, coupled with the low base in the previous year.

 

The chemicals cluster registered a 27.7 per cent increase in output in December (y-o-y), driven by the specialities and petrochemicals segments.

Output for precision engineering was up 14.7 per cent. EDB said that this was due to increased demand for metal precision components, metal stampings as well as machinery used in the semiconductor industry.

 

General manufacturing industries increased by 2.1 per cent in the period, attributed to spillover effects from construction activities, but pulled down by the cluster's printing and food; beverages and tobacco segments, which contracted by 0.1 per cent and 6.4 per cent respectively.

 

Two clusters did not fair so well last month.

 

Within the biomedical manufacturing cluster, the medical technology segment rose 22.4 per cent in the period. However, the cluster as a whole contracted 13.3 per cent.

 

Similarly, the land transport segment within the transport engineering cluster also spiked up 117.3 per cent, but the cluster as a whole fell by 14.8 per cent.

 

Economists were nevertheless cheered by the December figures.

 

Morgan Stanley Research said in a note that performance was, 'above consensus expectations'.

Saying that the figures showed broad-based improvement, it added: 'While a part of this big jump can be ascribed to base effects, improvement in the macro environment seems to be playing a role as well.'

 

Citigroup believes that a slight upward revision in the full-year 2009 GDP growth could now be in order. In a research note, it also highlighted that based on full-year data, manufacturing rose 2.2 per cent y-o-y in Q4 2009 compared to the one per cent estimated in the Ministry of Trade and Industry advance estimates.

 

For the whole of 2009, manufacturing output contracted by 4.1 per cent y-o-y.

 

Only the biomedical manufacturing cluster experienced an increase in output of 11.5 per cent y-o-y.

 

For the whole of 2009, electronics, chemicals, precision engineering, general manufacturing and transport engineering fell by 8.6, 8.8, 15, 4.8 and 5.6 per cent.