December 27, 2006	Wednesday	Zilhaj 05, 1427

SINGAPORE, Dec 26: Singapore's industrial output in November expanded at a faster-than-expected pace of 14.7 per cent from last year, boosted by robust contributions from the biomedical and transport engineering industries, the government said on Tuesday.

Analysts had expected a gain in a range of 5-11.2 per cent for an improvement from the revised 3.4 per cent growth recorded in October.

On a month-on-month seasonally adjusted basis, industrial output in November rose 13.2 per cent and for the 11 months to November, was 12.2 per cent higher, the Economic Development Board said in its monthly report.

“The biomedical manufacturing and transport engineering clusters led the growth in November,” the government agency said.

The biomedical sector was the star performer in November with output rising 45.9 per cent year-on-year on the back of strong contributions from pharmaceuticals and medical technology products.

Transport engineering continued to grow strongly with output up 23.5 per cent, bolstered by demand for offshore oil rigs and ship-related orders, the government said.

“The production of oil field equipment was propelled by demand from the Middle East, China and Southeast Asia,” it said.

“Substantial ship repair was also completed. Similarly, oil rig fabricators continued with current rig projects.” Singapore is the world's largest builder of offshore oil rigs, with strong global demand for oil driving its order books, and it is also a major venue for ship repairs.

The strong showing in biomedical and transport engineering helped offset a 2.1 per cent decline in electronics output, which account for almost half of Singapore's non-oil domestic exports.

The decline in electronics output was due to smaller production of hard disk drives and consumer electronics products, the government said.

For the chemical industry, output grew 3.9 per cent and precision engineering was up 9.8 per cent, it said.

Looking ahead, analysts say the biomedical industry to remain the lynching of manufacturing sector, which would cushion the expected slowdown in electronics demand globally.

“The strong performance in November's manufacturing was largely due to a surge in biomedical manufacturing in particular pharmaceuticals,” United Overseas Bank's economist Alvin Liew said.

The city-state's economy is targeted to grow 7.5-8 per cent in 2006, making it the second fastest growing economy in Southeast Asia after Vietnam where the government has estimated growth of 8.2 per cent this year. —AFP