Singapore’s manufacturing output expanded at a faster-than-expected pace in February, albeit at a slowed pace than January’s record increase, suggesting the rate of growth may moderate in coming months.

Output rose 19.1% from a year earlier, boosted by electronics and pharmaceuticals, the Economic Development Board said Friday, beating the median forecast of a 14.6% increase, according to a Dow Jones Newswires poll. The expansion in January was 39.4%.

Still, economists expect the central bank to start tightening its policy in April because of concerns over an acceleration in inflation. A robust recovery in manufacturing may leading to a surge in overall gross domestic product growth, likely boosting inflation beyond the government’s target range, they said.

The pace of growth in manufacturing “cannot be sustained at this rate, the numbers will moderate,” Robert Prior Wandesforde, an economist with HSBC, said. “But the latest numbers supports our case that MAS may tighten policy in April.”

Costs in the city state have already been rising, with the latest reading showing inflation accelerated to 1% in February from a 0.2% gain in January. Song Seng Wun, an economist with CIMB, expects first quarter GDP to expand 12% from a year earlier and as much as 8% for the whole year compared with the government’s estimate of 4.5% to 6.5%.

“Inflationary pressures are on the rise given expectations of a strong first quarter gross domestic product growth,” Song said.

Still, economists’ view on the policy move by the Monetary Authority of Singapore in April remains split. A person familiar with the central bank’s thinking had told Dow Jones Newswires earlier this week that the monetary authority is leaning toward tightening policy a bit, but hasn’t decided yet.

The MAS uses the exchange rate, rather than interest rates, as its policy tool because trade flows dwarf the island’s small domestic economic output. The central bank targets an undisclosed trading range for the trade-weighted Singapore dollar, guiding the local currency higher to tame inflation or lower to boost growth.

Electronics output rose 56.5% from a year earlier after surging 82% in January due to higher export demand and weaker comparative numbers, according to the data. The rise was mainly due to an increase in demand for chips used in consumer electronics and semiconductors.

Biomedical output rose 14.8% due to a 15.6% rise in pharmaceuticals output, attributed to a “higher production of active pharmaceutical ingredients.”

Singapore’s pharmaceutical sector is dominated by a small number of firms, and output can vary significantly when plants change product lineups or close for maintenance.

Manufacturing output, excluding the biomedical sector, increased by 21.4%. Production from the transport engineering sector fell 17.7% due to weaker output in the aerospace, marine and offshore segments.

Seasonally adjusted manufacturing output rose 5.9% from a month earlier compared with a revised 11.0% rise in January. The median forecast of economists was for a 4.0% drop in seasonally adjusted terms in February.

“Not unlike the patterns elsewhere, production is getting back to the pre-crisis highs. Though the rebound is unlikely to continue on this sort of a trajectory, it should continue on a positive trajectory,” David Cohen, an economist with Action Economics, said.

Cohen expects the central bank to keep policy steady in April, but says his decision remains a “close call”.