Industrial production index rises by 6.2% in March

The Index of Industrial Production (IIP) increased by an estimated 6.2% year on year, according to the General Statistics Office (GSO).

While increases were seen in processing and manufacturing sectors (8.8%); power production and distribution (12.2%); water supply, sewage and trash treatment (9.5%), mineral extraction reportedly experienced decreases of 4.5% (crude oil extraction fell by 6.4%).

In the first two months of the year, the manufacturing and processing industry’s consumption index merely increased by 9.1% year-on-year.

The GSO announced that the IIP in the first quarter climbed by 6.3% against the same period last year. Of which, industrial, processing and manufacturing sectors increased by 7.9%; power production and distribution rose by 13.1% and water supply, sewage and trash treatment climbed by 9.4%. The three sectors contributed 5.6, 0.9 and 0.1 points to the overall IIP increase respectively.

Notably, mineral extraction fell by 1.2% in the first quarter, subtracting 0.3 points from the overall increase.

Level 2 industries achieving sharp year-on-year increases in the first quarter were metal production (23.1%); paper production and paper products (14.8%); power production and distribution (13.1%); and furniture production (12.5%).

It was also reported that the consumption index of the manufacturing and processing industry fell by 24.1% month-on-month, but rose by 11.2% year-on-year. Therefore, in the first two months of the year, the industry’s consumption index merely increased by 9.1% year-on-year.

The inventory of the processing and manufacturing industry as of March 1 rose by 8.7% year-on-year. Increases in large inventory was seen in the production of electronic and optical products and computers (83.1%); beverage production (56.6%) and motor vehicle manufacturing (46.6%).

As a result, the average inventory of the processing and manufacturing industry in the first two months of the year stood at 78.2%, in which high inventory was seen in production from prefabricated metals (138.3%); chemical and chemical product production (113%); and production of drugs, pharmaceutical and medicinal products (108.9%).

(Source: NDO)