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Manufacturing growth up 7.4% in July, slower than expected

Manufacturing grew at a slower pace last month, helped by a surge in pharmaceuticals and biomedical manufacturing.

Manufacturing grew at 7.4 per cent compared to July last year, a shade below the 7.8 per cent economists were expecting.

Electronics continued to decline due to weaker global demand. Electronic manufacturing fell 18.2 per cent.

But pharmaceuticals grew at 47.7 per cent, while medical technology also surged 24.2 per cent, said the Economic Development Board.

The chemicals cluster grew a modest 5.4 per cent, partly hampered by the petrochemicals segment which fell 3.7 per cent due to plant closures for maintenance and inspection.

Output of the transport engineering cluster rose 1.2 per cent with strong growth coming from land transport (24%) and aerospace (7.2%) segments. However, growth in the cluster was partially offset by declines in the marine and offshore engineering segment due to a lower volume of work in the shipyards.

The general manufacturing cluster’s output declined by 9.2 per cent - about 2.2 per cent lower than the same period last year. Food, beverages & tobacco and printing segments declined by 0.9 and 2.8 per cent respectively, while the miscellaneous segment’s output shrank 13.3 per cent with lower production of secondary batteries, wooden furniture and structural metal products.