Qatar's Industrial Production Index Drops in September

Doha, November 14 (QNA) - The Planning and Statistics Authority has issued a press release for September 2018 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 percent, "Manufacturing" with a relative importance of 15.2 percent, "Electricity" with a relative importance of 0.7 percent, and finally "Water" with a relative importance of 0.5 percent. The Industrial Production index (IPI), September 2018 amounted to 108.8 points, decreased by 1.4 percent compared to the previous month (August-2018), and decreased by 2.6 percent, when compared to the corresponding month of 2017. Graph (1) illustrates the time series of the IPI and monthly rates of change since September of 2017 until September of 2018. 'Mining': The index of this sector showed an decrease by 1.2 percent compared to the previous month (August of 2018), as a result of the decrease in the quantities of "crude oil and natural gas" by 1.2 percent, while "Other mining and quarrying" showed a decrease by 0.7 percent. When compared to the corresponding month of the previous year (September 2017), the IPI of Mining decreased by 3.6 percent. 'Manufacturing': A decrease of 3.2 percent is recorded in September 2018 compared to the previous month (August-2018), because of the decrease in production of four groups: "Manufacture of chemicals and chemical products" by 5.2 percent, 'Manufacture of Cement & other non-metallic mineral products' by 3.4 percent, 'Printing and reproduction of recorded media' by 1.6 percent, and 'Manufacture of basic metals' by 1.1 percent. However an increase was recorded in other four groups: 'Manufacture of refined petroleum products' by 2.9 percent, 'Manufacture of food products' by 2.6 percent, "Manufacture of beverages", and 'Manufacture of rubber and plastics products' by 1.6 percent each. On the other hand, in terms of annual change, comparing to September 2017, an increase of 2.9 percent was recorded, affected by the following groups: "Manufacture of beverages" by 16.2 percent, 'Manufacture of basic metals' by 13.8 percent, "Printing and reproduction of recorded media', and 'Manufacture of rubber and plastics products' by 6.5 percent each, 'Manufacture of chemicals and chemical products' by 2.9 percent, and 'Manufacture of Cement & other non-metallic mineral products" by 0.4 percent. However a fall recorded in 'Manufacture of refined petroleum products' by 2.6 percent, and 'Manufacture of food products' by 2.1 percent. 'Electricity': An increase of 4.8 percent in the production of 'Electricity' group between September 2018 and the previous month (August-2018), while the annual decrease (comparing with September 2017), was 2.4 percent. 'Water' : When compared September 2018 with the previous month, an increase of 4.8 percent was noticed. Comparing with corresponding month (September 2017), a decrease of 9.0 percent was recorded. (QNA)