Singapore Business Confidence

Last Release

Mar 31, 2025

Actual

-6

Units In

Points

Frequency

Quarterly

Next Release

Jul 31, 2025

Time to Release

2 Months 29 Days 5 Hours

Highest	Lowest	Average	Date Range	Source
54 Mar 1976	-57 Dec 2008	12.53 Points	1970-2025	Statistics Singapore

In Singapore, the Survey of Business Expectations of the Manufacturing Sector covers around 410 manufacturing firms. These companies are asked to assess their expectation of general business conditions, output and employment for the next six months. Provided responses are then weighted by their contribution to employment and value added. The indicator is computed as the difference between the weighted percentage of positive assessments and the weighted percentage of negative responses. The index varies on a scale of -100 to 100; a value of -100 indicates extreme lack of confidence, 0 neutrality and 100 extreme confidence.

Latest Updates

Business confidence in Singapore’s manufacturing sector fell to -6 in Q1 2025 from +16 in the previous quarter, reflecting renewed pessimism among manufacturers—the first since Q4 2022. The decline was driven by a weaker business outlook over the next six months in key segments such as biomedical manufacturing (-8), electronics (-9), and chemicals (-22). Conversely, the transport engineering cluster remained the most optimistic (+14), buoyed by strong sentiment in the aerospace segment, where firms continue to expect robust demand amid high global and regional air travel volumes. Sentiment also remained slightly positive in general manufacturing (+4) and precision engineering (+2). Meanwhile, output expectations for Q2 turned positive (+2 vs -15 in Q4), though employment forecasts were slightly less optimistic (+2 vs +4).