Growth of the manufacturing sector in 1H20 was supported by the biomedical manufacturing and precision engineering clusters

Since the COVID-19 outbreak began earlier in the year, the attendant public health measures, such as lockdowns and border closures, to contain the outbreak have led to significant disruptions in economic activity around the world.

Despite these economic disruptions, Singapore’s manufacturing sector grew by 3.5 per cent year-on-year (yoy) in 1H20, supported by output expansions in the biomedical manufacturing and precision engineering clusters. Specifically, these two clusters contributed 5.0 percentage-points (pp) and 1.5pp respectively to the overall growth of the manufacturing sector in 1H20. On the other hand, the transport engineering (-1.2pp), general manufacturing (-0.8pp), chemicals (-0.8pp) and electronics (-0.2pp) clusters contributed negatively to the sector’s growth. This article explores the factors underlying the varying performance of the different clusters within the manufacturing sector in 1H20, as well as the outlook for the sector for the rest of 2020.

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