Planning and Statistics Authority has issued a press release for March 2020 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), March 2020 amounted to 100.8 points, decreased by 0.6% compared to the previous month (February 2020), and increased by 0.2%, when compared to the corresponding month of 2019.
The analysis of the monthly IPI of the above activities as follows:
1. “Mining”: The index of this sector showed a decrease by 1.4% compared to the previous month (February 2020), as a result of the decrease in the quantities of "crude oil and natural gas" by 1.3%, while "Other mining and quarrying" showed an increase by 1.7%. When compared to the corresponding month of the previous year (March 2019), the IPI of Mining increased by 0.3%.
2. “Manufacturing”: The index of this sector showed an increase by 1.8% compared to the previous month (February 2020), The groups showed an increases include: “Manufacture of refined petroleum products” by 22.3%, followed by “Manufacture of food products” by 16.9%, "Manufacture of chemicals and chemical products" by 3.6%, and “Manufacture of Cement and other non-metallic mineral products” by 0.4%. However, a decrease was recorded in four groups: “Printing and reproduction of recorded media” by 35.4, followed by "Manufacture of basic metals” by 24.8%, "Manufacture of beverages" by 3.7%, and “Manufacture of rubber and plastics products” by 0.9%.
On the other hand, in terms of annual change, comparing to March 2019, a decrease of 1.8% was recorded, affected by the following groups: "Printing and reproduction of recorded media” by 35.4%, “Manufacture of basic metals” by 13.7, “Manufacture of Cement & other non-metallic mineral products" by 8.9%, “Manufacture of refined petroleum products” by 3.8%, and “Manufacture of rubber and plastics products” by 0.4%. However, an increase recorded in, “Manufacture of food products” by 9.5%, “Manufacture of chemicals and chemical products” by 1.8%, and "Manufacture of beverages" by 0.8%.
3. “Electricity”: An increase of 25.0% was noticed in the production of “Electricity” between March 2020 and the previous month (February 2020), while the annual increase when comparing with March 2019, was 18.5%.
4. “Water”: An increase of 22.2% was noticed in the production of ‘'Water'' between March 2020 and the previous month (February 2020). Comparing with corresponding month (March 2019), an increase of 19.3% was recorded.
