6.0% monthly increase in General IPI.
7.9% monthly increase in IPI of Mining sector.
3.4% monthly decrease recorded in IPI of manufacturing sector.
Planning and Statistics Authority has issued a press release for May 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), May 2020 amounted to 104.2 points, increased by 6.0% compared to the previous month (April 2020), and decreased by 2.0%, when compared to the corresponding month of 2019. Graph (1) illustrates the time series of the IPI and monthly rates of change since May of 2019 until May of 2020. and table (1) shows the monthly and annual comparison of the Industrial Production Index May 2020.
The analysis of the monthly IPI of the above activities as follows:
1. “Mining”: The index of this sector showed an increase by 7.9% compared to the previous month (April 20200), as a result of the increase in the quantities of "crude oil and natural gas" by 7.9%, while "Other mining and quarrying" showed a decrease by 7.6%. When compared to the corresponding month of the previous year (May 2019), the IPI of Mining decreased by 1.2%. Graphs (2) explains the trends of monthly change in the mining sector during May 2019 until May of 2020.
2. “Manufacturing”: The index of this sector showed a decrease by 3.4% compared to the previous month (April 2020), The groups showed a decreases include: “Manufacture of Cement and other non-metallic mineral products” by 13.8%, followed by “Manufacture of food products” by 10.8%, “Manufacture of refined petroleum products” by 7.0%, "Manufacture of chemicals and chemical products" by 2.9%, and “Manufacture of rubber and plastics products” by 2.8%. However, an increase was recorded in two groups: "Manufacture of beverages" by 4.2%, and "Manufacture of basic metals” by 2.3%. As for “Printing and reproduction of recorded media”, the Production was stopped during the month of May 2020, due to the Corona pandemic. The relative weight of this group was distributed to the rest of the sub-groups of the manufacturing sector, and then the index for industrial production was calculated.
Graph (3) shows the trend of IPI of manufacturing sector during May of 2019 until May of 2020.
On the other hand, in terms of annual change, comparing to May 2019, a decrease of 6.0% was recorded, affected by the following groups: “Manufacture of Cement & other non-metallic mineral products" by 30.3%, followed by “Manufacture of refined petroleum products” by 22.7%, “Manufacture of basic metals” by 17.7, “Manufacture of rubber and plastics products” by 6.6%, and "Manufacture of beverages" by 5.5%. However, an increase recorded in, “Manufacture of food products” and “Manufacture of chemicals and chemical products” by 1.5% each.
3. “Electricity”: An increase of 24.3% was noticed in the production of “Electricity” between May 2020 and the previous month (April 2020), while the annual decrease was 2.8%, compared with May 2019.
4. “Water”: A decrease of 8.5% was noticed in the production of ‘'Water'' between May 2020 and the previous month (April 2020). Comparing with corresponding month (May 2019), an increase of 3.6% was recorded.
