• 5.6% monthly decrease in General IPI.

• 7.7%  monthly decrease recorded in IPI of Mining sector.

• 6.1%  monthly increase in IPI of manufacturing sector.

Ministry of Development Planning and Statistics (MDPS), has issued a press release for October 2017 of industrial production index to study and analyze the economic level of the state. This index details out the growth of various industrial sectors in an economy such as “Mining”, “Manufacturing”, “Electricity production and “Water production and desalination”. It is a short-term quantitative index that measures the changes in the volume of production of a selected basket of industrial products over a given period with respect to that in a chosen period called the base period.

The Industrial Production Index consists of three main components: mining with a relative importance of 83.6%, manufacturing with a relative importance of 15.2%, electricity with a relative importance of 0.7%, and finally water with a relative importance of 0.5%.

The Industrial Production index (IPI), for October 2017 amounted to 105.4 points, decreased by 5.6% compared to the previous month (September -2017), and  a  0.1%, when compared to the corresponding month of 2016.  Graph (1) illustrates the time series of the IPI and monthly rates of change since October of 2016 until October of 2017. Table (1) shows the monthly and annual comparison of the Industrial Production Index for October, 2017.

The analysis of the monthly IPI of the above activities is as follows:

1. “Mining”: The index of this sector showed a decrease by 7.7%  compared to the previous month (September of 2017), as a result of the decrease in the quantities of crude oil and natural gas produced by 7.7%, and an increase in "Other mining and quarrying" by 16.5%. When compared to the corresponding month of the previous year (October 2016), the  IPI  of Mining  decreased  by 1.6%.  Graphs (2) explains the trends of monthly change in the mining sector during October, 2016 until October of 2017.

“Manufacturing”: An increase of 6.1% is recorded in October 2017 compared to the previous month (September-2017), and that was due to the increase in production of seven groups: "Printing and reproduction of recorded media" by 16.8%,“Manufacture of Basic metals” by 15.3%, “Manufacture of Cement & other non-metallic mineral products” by 10.7%, “Manufacture of Beverages” by 8%, “Manufacture of chemicals and chemical products” by 6.4%, and “Manufacture of Rubber and plastic products” by 4.3%, “Manufacture of food products” by 2.3%. However a decrease was recorded in one group:  “Manufacture of refined petroleum products” by 1.7%,  and. Graph (3) shows the trend of IPI of manufacturing sector during October of 2016 until October of 2017.

On the other hand, in terms of annual change, comparing to October 2016,  an increase of 7.2% was recorded, affected by the following groups: “Manufacture of refined petroleum products” by 36.1%, “Manufacture of food products” by 19.1%, “Manufacture of basic metals” by 9.9%, “Manufacture of chemicals and chemical products” by 3.6%, “Manufacture of Beverages” by 2.7%, "Printing and reproduction of recorded media" by %2.3.  However a decline recorded in, “Manufacture of Cement & other non-metallic mineral products” by 19.7%,  and Manufacture of Rubber and plastic products” by 9.2%.

2. “Electricity”: A decrease of 7.9% in the production of “Electricity” group between October 2017 and the previous month (September-2017),  while the annual increase ( comparing with October 2016) ,  was  a  17.9%.

3. “Water” : When comparing October 2017 with the previous month,  a rise of 5.5% was noticed.  However, a decrease of 2.4 % was recorded  when comparing with corresponding month(October 2016) in the previous year. The Graph (3) shows IPI of  “Electricity” and “Water supply” sectors, during October of 2016 until October of 2017.