Certain Segments of The Manufacturing Remained Resilient in a Time of Covid-19. Propping up The Industrial Market.

Despite the global flow of goods and supply chains being affected by a pandemic-led economic downturn, some bright spots emerged in the manufacturing sector. Segments involved in the production of essential commodities such as medical and hygiene-related products and the delivery of goods, together with warehouses and logistic spaces, that keep Singapore amply supplied, have mitigated the impact of the crisis in the industrial market.

According to the Ministry of Trade and Industry’s (MTI) Economic Survey of Singapore, the nation’s economy declined by 0.7% year-on-year (y-o-y) in Q1 2020, a smaller contraction when compared to the earlier flash estimate of a 2.2% y-o-y decline. This was a result of the manufacturing sector recording a better than expected performance, with the biomedical manufacturing, precision engineering and transport engineering clusters registering output expansions that outweighed the declines in the electronics, general manufacturing and chemical clusters.

The Singapore Purchasing Managers’ Index (PMI) hit a trough in April 2020, but the index witnessed a slower contraction at 46.8 in May, as global demand for biomedical goods and pharmaceutical ingredients increased due to exigencies caused by the COVID-19 crisis.