Singapore’s industrial production rose at the fastest pace in three months, an advance that may ease as a slowdown in world economic growth hurts demand for electronics and pharmaceuticals.

Manufacturing, which accounts for about a quarter of the economy, climbed 26.2% in September from a year earlier, after a revised 7.7% increase in August, the Economic Development Board said in a statement today. The median estimate of 17 economists surveyed by Bloomberg was for a 19% gain.

 

Overseas demand for goods by Asian manufacturers such as Singapore-based Hi-P International Ltd., whose customers include BlackBerry maker Research in Motion Ltd., may cool as the global recovery slows. The International Monetary Fund this month lowered its 2011 forecast for world growth, citing high unemployment, public debt and fragile banking systems as risks.

 

“We expect the growth momentum of manufacturing output to moderate as the external outlook slows,” Shirla Sum, an economist at Goldman Sachs Group Inc. in Hong Kong, said before the report.

 

Production in the third quarter rose 14.3%, more than the government’s preliminary estimate earlier this month of 12.1%, suggesting revised gross domestic product data to be released in November may show the economy performed better than previously reported.

 

The island’s economy grew 10.3% in the third quarter from a year earlier, the government said Oct. 14. The economy could experience a technical recession in the second half of 2010 even as the island remains “on track” for an expansion of 13% to 15% for the full year, Senior Minister of State for Trade and Industry S. Iswaran said Oct. 18.

 

“The pace of recovery in the global economy is expected to remain subdued for the rest of the year,” Iswaran said last week. “This will affect the performance of our manufacturing and trade-dependent services sector. The biomedical manufacturing cluster could also continue to be affected by some scheduled plant maintenance shutdowns.”

 

Industrial production climbed a seasonally adjusted 5.1% in September from August, when it fell a revised 6.5% from the previous month, today’s report showed.

 

Electronics production rose 28% from a year earlier after gaining a revised 32.2% in August. Pharmaceutical output increased 53.8%.