Singapore's manufacturing activity surged 9.3 per cent last month over the same month a year ago, boosted by higher output in the electronic, transport engineering and chemicals sectors.

The increase beat August's expansion, which was revised up to 4 per cent.

On a month-on-month basis, manufacturing grew 3.7 per cent in September over August, according to data from the Economic Development Board (EDB) released on Friday.

Output of the electronics cluster grew 20 per cent in September compared to the same period a year ago, while the transport engineering cluster expanded 14.4 per cent. The chemicals cluster's output rose 5.8 per cent.

Biomedical manufacturing output was up 0.1 per cent in September over last year. Pharmaceuticals output increased 0.8 per cent, but this was partly offset by the 3.2 per cent decline in the medical technology segment.