{
  "id": 16563909,
  "title": "Singapore factory output growth slows to 3.4% in September despite AI-driven demand",
  "url": "https://urgent.news/2026/10/26/singapore-factory-output-growth-slows-to-3-4-in-september-despite-ai",
  "topic": "ai",
  "section": "AI",
  "published": "2026-10-26T05:00:00.000Z",
  "source": {
    "name": "Straits Times Business",
    "slug": "straits-times-business",
    "url": "https://www.straitstimes.com/business/economy/singapore-factory-output-growth-slows-to-3-4-in-september-as-pharmaceutical-production-fell"
  },
  "original_language": "en",
  "account": "Singapore's manufacturing output growth decelerated to 3.4% in September, despite a surge in demand for artificial intelligence-related products. The Economic Development Board reported this in a data release on October 26th. This marked a significant drop from the 15.4% expansion seen in August and was well below the 7.1% forecast by economists in a Bloomberg poll. The decline was primarily due to a slowdown in electronics output and a sharp contraction in pharmaceutical production. Electronics output growth moderated, while pharmaceutical production contracted sharply. However, precision engineering saw a significant growth of 31% in September, driven by increased production of semiconductor equipment and other industrial goods. The electronics cluster saw a 5.7% growth, with the infocomms and consumer electronics, and computer peripherals and data storage segments expanding the most at 29% and 21.3% respectively. The transport engineering cluster also grew by 10.6%, with land transport seeing the largest increase at 31.4%. Aerospace production also grew by 16.3%. On the downside, biomedical manufacturing saw the largest contraction at 32.8%, largely driven by the pharmaceuticals sector, which saw a 65.9% decline. The medical technology segment also fell by 1.7% due to weaker export demand. The chemicals cluster saw a 4.6% decline, while the other chemicals and petrochemicals segments contracted by 19.4% and 24.3% respectively. Overall, the food, beverages and tobacco segment saw the strongest growth of 11% due to higher production of beverage and dairy products, while commercial printing also expanded by 7.6%.",
  "summary": "The precision engineering cluster recorded the largest growth in September.",
  "key_points": [],
  "editors_take": null,
  "illustration": null,
  "coverage": {
    "outlets": 1,
    "also_reported_by": []
  },
  "ai_generated": true,
  "disclaimer": "Summaries, key points and the editor’s take are written by software from other outlets’ reporting and may contain errors — always check the linked original."
}