SINGAPORE - The manufacturing sector turned in another strong performance last month, producing 12.1 per cent more output over a year ago.

This comes on top of a 13.1 per cent jump in February's production, which was revised up from a previous estimate of 12.8 per cent growth.

Manufacturers across all segments churned out more goods in March, but those in the transport engineering and biomedical clusters proved particularly busy, according to data from the Economic Development Board (EDB) on Friday.

Output in the transport engineering cluster jumped 29.4 per cent last month from the previous year, on the back of a thriving marine and offshore engineering industry, the EDB said.

Biomedical production grew 16.4 per cent over a year ago, mainly due to more valuable pharmaceutical ingredients being produced, as well as higher output of biologics products, the agency added. Excluding the biomedical segment, which is particularly volatile, overall manufacturing would have grown a smaller 10.9 per cent.

Electronics, another key manufacturing segment, saw output grow 8.7 per cent from the year before, largely because of semiconductors and other electronic modules and components.

Compared with February, overall manufacturing output rose 6.1 per cent in March, the EDB said.