Singapore's manufacturing output in February was almost the same level as that in February last year, just up 0.1 percent.

According to a statement by the Singapore Economic Development Board (EDB) on Monday, excluding biomedical, February's year-on- year manufacturing output rose 1.9 percent.

The transport engineering cluster grew 18.6 percent, with higher output from all segments, such as ship construction, repairing and conversion, the fabrication of oil rigs, as well as the production of oil field drilling equipment.

The biomedical manufacturing cluster contracted 6.5 percent year-on-year in February. This was due mainly to the 8.1 percent contraction in production of pharmaceuticals.

The precision engineering cluster and the electronics cluster shrank 6.0 percent and 2.4 percent respectively in February.

The chemicals cluster contracted by 1.3 percent year-on-year in February while the general manufacturing industries grew 4.8 percent in the same month.

Cumulative output for the first two months of this year grew 8. 0 percent compared to the same period last year.

(Source: Xinhua English)