• 2.1% monthly decrease in General IPI.
• 2.4% monthly decrease recorded in IPI of Mining sector.
• 0.3% monthly decrease in IPI of Manufacturing sector.
Planning and Statistics Authority, has issued a press release for February2019 of industrial production index to study and analyze the economic level of the state. This index details the growth of various industrial sectors in 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 productions 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), February 2019 amounted to 104.9 points, decreased by 2.1% compared to the previous month (January-2019), and an increase by 3.3% was recorded, when compared to the corresponding month of 2018.
The analysis of the monthly IPI of the above activities as follows:
1. “Mining”: The index of this sector showed a decrease by 2.4% compared to the previous month (January of 2019), as a result of the decrease in the quantities of "crude oil and natural gas" by 2.4%, and "Other mining and quarrying" showed a decrease by 1.1%. When compared to the corresponding month of the previous year (February 2018), the IPI of Mining increased by 3.3%. Graphs (2) explains the trends of monthly change in the mining sector during February, 2018 until February of 2019.
2. “Manufacturing”: A decrease of 0.3% is recorded in February 2019 compared to the previous month (January -2019), because of the decrease in production of five groups namely: “Manufacture of basic metals” by 2.6%, “Manufacture of cement & other non-metallic mineral products” by 2.5%, “Manufacture of refined petroleum products” by 2.4%, “Manufacture of rubber and plastics products” by 0.7%, and "Manufacture of beverages" by 0.1%. An increase was recorded in "Manufacture of chemicals and chemical products" by 0.9%, and “Manufacture of food products” by 0.4%. No change noticed in “Printing and reproduction of recorded media”. . On the other hand, in terms of annual change, comparing to February 2018, an increase of 4.1% was recorded, affected by the following groups: “Manufacture of basic metals” by 19.9%, "Manufacture of beverages" by 11.8%, “Manufacture of chemicals and chemical products” by 5.2%, and “Manufacture of food products” by 4.8%. However a decrease recorded in “Manufacture of cement & other non-metallic mineral products" by 11.6%, followed by "Printing and reproduction of recorded media” by 10.6%, “Manufacture of refined petroleum products” by 2.8%, and “Manufacture of rubber and plastics products” 2.6%.
3. “Electricity”: A decrease of 7.7% in the production of “Electricity” group between February,2019 and the previous month (January -2019), while the annual increase ( comparing with February 2018), was 2.0%.
4. “Water” : When compared February 2019 with the previous month, a decrease of 4.6% was noticed, while Comparing with corresponding month(February,2018), a decrease of 11.7% was recorded.
