SINGAPORE (Reuters) \u2013 Singapore\u2019s manufacturing output in February fell 1.3% from the same period a year earlier, bucking expectations of growth due mainly due to a steep decline in the biomedical sector, official data showed on Wednesday.<\/p>\n
Analysts had expected a 7% year-on-year expansion in February, according to a Reuters poll.<\/p>\n
On a month-on-month and seasonally adjusted basis, manufacturing output fell 7.5% in February, missing analysts\u2019 expectations of a 0.1% expansion.<\/p>\n
Biomedical manufacturing output fell 14.3% year-on-year and pharmaceuticals plunged 30%, data from the Singapore Economic Development Board showed, due to weaker demand.<\/p>\n
Electronics also fell 6.4% year-on-year due to weakness in segments including semiconductors, which was down 9.5%.<\/p>\n
Maybank economist Chua Hak Bin said Singapore\u2019s manufacturing recovery momentum has clearly waned as consumers and businesses turn more cautious given uncertainty over U.S. President Trump\u2019s intention to implement new tariffs from April 2.<\/p>\n
\u201cSingapore will likely be spared from the reciprocal tariffs on April 2 as its not one of the \u2018Dirty 15\u2019, but may be hit if the 25% tariffs on semiconductors are introduced,\u201d he said, referring to countries the United States has said it may focus its tariffs on.<\/p>\n
(Reporting by Jun Yuan Yong; Editing by Martin Petty)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"featured_media":508,"template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false},"categories":[20,1],"class_list":["post-509","news","type-news","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-business","category-uncategorized"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/teamwp2.mydevfactory.com\/biswajit-basak\/newsmgf\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news\/509","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/teamwp2.mydevfactory.com\/biswajit-basak\/newsmgf\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/teamwp2.mydevfactory.com\/biswajit-basak\/newsmgf\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/news"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/teamwp2.mydevfactory.com\/biswajit-basak\/newsmgf\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/508"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/teamwp2.mydevfactory.com\/biswajit-basak\/newsmgf\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=509"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/teamwp2.mydevfactory.com\/biswajit-basak\/newsmgf\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=509"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}