Industrial Production Index Up in January 2019

Doha, March 19 (QNA) - Planning and Statistics Authority, has released January 2019 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), January 2019 amounted to 107.2 points, increased by 1.5% compared to the previous month (December-2018), and an increase by 0.6% was recorded, when compared to the corresponding month of 2018. According to the analysis of the monthly IPI of the above activities, the index of the "Mining" sector showed an increase by 1.8% compared to the previous month (December of 2018), as a result of the increase in the quantities of "crude oil and natural gas" by 1.8%, while "Other mining and quarrying" showed a decrease by 4.0%. When compared to the corresponding month of the previous year (January 2018), the IPI of Mining increased by 0.9%. In "Manufacturing", an increase of 0.5% is recorded in January 2019 compared to the previous month (December -2018), because of the increase in production of four groups: "Manufacture of food products" by 3.5%, "Manufacture of basic metals" by 3.1%, "Manufacture of Cement & other non-metallic mineral products" by 2.5%,"Manufacture of chemicals and chemical products" by 0.3%. a decrease was recorded in four groups: "Manufacture of rubber and plastics products" by 2.9%, "Manufacture of beverages" by 1.7%, "Printing and reproduction of recorded media" by 0.9%, "Manufacture of refined petroleum products" by 0.5%. On the other hand, in terms of annual change, comparing to January 2018, a decrease of 1.2% was recorded, affected by the following groups: "Manufacture of Cement & other non-metallic mineral products" by 15.3%, "Printing and reproduction of recorded media" by 14.5%, "Manufacture of rubber and plastics products" by 4.4%, "Manufacture of chemicals and chemical products" by 2.7%. However, a rise recorded in "Manufacture of basic metals" by 13.5%, "Manufacture of beverages" by 9.8%, "Manufacture of food products" by 3.4%, "Manufacture of refined petroleum products" by 0.8%. In "Electricity", a decrease of 11.1% in the production of "Electricity" group between January 2019 and the previous month (December -2018), while the annual decrease (comparing with January 2018), was 2.2%. In the "Water sector, when compared January 2019 with the previous month, an increase of 7.8% was noticed. Comparing with corresponding month (January 2018), a decrease of 14.7% was recorded. (QNA)