Singapore’s industrial production rose at the fastest pace in five months as pharmaceutical output surged, offsetting slower growth in electronics manufacturing.

Manufacturing, which accounts for about a quarter of the economy, climbed 31% in October from a year earlier, after a revised 26.8% increase in September, the Economic Development Board said in a statement today. The median estimate of 14 economists surveyed by Bloomberg News was for a 26.8% gain.

Asian economies have led a global recovery this year that’s been restrained by sovereign credit woes in Europe and a weak job market in the U.S., where the unemployment rate remains above 9%. Singapore is forecasting a record economic expansion in 2010 even after gross domestic product contracted last quarter as manufacturing growth slowed.

 

“Today’s industrial production data should finally end any speculation of a technical recession in Singapore,” Irvin Seah, an economist at DBS Group Holdings in Singapore, said before the report. The figures “will provide some much needed gas to the overall manufacturing growth and drag the economy back to the positive growth territory” this quarter, he said.