File photo: Agencies

SINGAPORE, July 24 (Xinhua) -- Singapore Economic Development Board announced on Friday that the country's manufacturing output decreased 6.7 percent year on year in June, compared to a revised 8.1 percent decrease in May.

In the first half of 2020, the manufacturing output grew 3.5 percent year on year.

Excluding biomedical manufacturing, the output rose 2.1 percent in June from a year ago.

On a seasonally adjusted month-on-month basis, Singapore's manufacturing output increased 0.2 percent in June. Excluding biomedical manufacturing, the output decreased 0.8 percent.

Output of the biomedical manufacturing cluster fell 30.6 percent year on year in June, compared to a revised 1.9 percent growth in the previous month. The medical technology segment grew 5.9 percent to meet export demand for COVID-related medical devices.

However, the pharmaceutical segment declined 37.4 percent with lower output of biological products. On a year-to-date basis, the biomedical manufacturing cluster grew 26.6 percent year on year.

As for the performance of other clusters, the electronics cluster's output grew 17.3 percent year on year in June, but fell 0.4 percent year on year in the first half of this year. The precision engineering cluster's output grew 9.1 percent year on year in June and 11.6 percent in the first six months.

The transport engineering cluster's output decreased 33.9 percent in June and 15.7 percent in the first six months this year. The chemicals cluster's output fell 12.1 percent in June and 5.5 percent in the January-June period. The general manufacturing cluster's output contracted 13.9 percent in June and 10.9 percent in the first half of this year.