• 0.5% monthly decrease in General IPI.
• 1.0% monthly decrease recorded in IPI of Mining sector.
• 1.4% monthly increase in IPI of manufacturing sector.
Ministry of Development Planning and Statistics (MDPS), has issued a press release for March 2018 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 March 2018 amounted to 103.4 points, decreased by 0.5% compared to the previous month (February -2018), while it is decreased by 4.4%, when compared to the corresponding month of 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 1.0% compared to the previous month (February of 2018), as a result of the decrease in the quantities of crude oil and natural gas produced by 1.0%, and increase in "Other mining and quarrying" by 2.8%. When compared to the corresponding month of the previous year (March 2017), the IPI of Mining decreased by 4.9%. Graphs (2) explain the trends of monthly change in the mining sector during March, 2017 until March of 2018.
2. “Manufacturing”: An increase of 1.4% is recorded in March 2018 compared to the previous month (February-2018), due to the increase in production of seven groups: “Manufacture of basic metals” by 10.9%, “Manufacture of rubber and plastics products” by 7.3%, “Manufacture of Cement & other non-metallic mineral products” by 6.0%, “Manufacture of beverages” by 5.9%, “Manufacture of food products” by 5.4%,“ Printing and reproduction of recorded media” by 1.2%,"Manufacture of chemicals and chemical products" by 0.6%. However a decrease was recorded in :"Manufacture of refined petroleum products" by 2.7%.
On the other hand, in terms of annual change, comparing to March 2017, a decrease of 1.4% was recorded, affected by the following groups: "Manufacture of refined petroleum products" by 7.4%, “Manufacture of chemicals and chemical products “by 1.9%. However a rise recorded in, “Manufacture of beverages” by 26.5%, “Manufacture of food products” by 24.0%, “Manufacture of rubber and plastics products” by 13.5%, “Manufacture of Cement & other non-metallic mineral products” by 9.4% ,“Manufacture of basic metals” by 2.8%, “Printing and reproduction of recorded media” by 2.6%.
3. “Electricity”: An increase of 14.3% in the production of “Electricity” group between March 2018 and the previous month (February-2018), while the annual decrease (comparing with March 2017), was 7.0%.
4. “Water” : When comparing March 2018 with the previous month, an increase of 4.8% was noticed, and a decrease of 10.8 % was recorded when comparing with corresponding month(March 2017) in the previous year.
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