Industrial production index up 6.7 percent in eight months

Photo: Vinanet

The metric was lower than the growth of 7.2 percent recorded in the first eight months of 2016, and 9.9 percent recorded in the same period of 2015, GSO said.

The low growth rate was due to the reduction of 6.9 percent in production in the mining industry, one of key industrial production sectors.

Other industrial products with drops in production included crude oil (10.8 percent), natural gas (9.2 percent) and liquid petroleum gas – LPG (13.4 percent), automobiles (4.5 percent) and mobile phones (0.8 percent)

The processing and manufacturing industry, which accounted for over 70 percent of total industrial output, saw a yearly IPI rise of 10.8 percent.

Many industries also enjoyed a surge in IPI, such as electric production and distribution (8.6 percent), water supply and waste treatment (7.4 percent), metal production (21.2 percent), electronics, computer and optical products (17.8 percent), rubber and plastic products (10.4 percent), paper production (10.1 percent) and weaving (10 percent).

Among key industrial products that posted high IPI increases in eight months were television sets (34.4 percent), raw steel and iron (23.9 percent), urea (17.3 percent), fabric (17.7 percent) and processed seafood (9.4 percent).

According to the GSO, the consumption index of the processing and manufacturing industry rose 9.5 percent year-on-year, higher than the growth of 8.1 percent year-on-year in the first eight months of 2016, contributing to the growth of production in this industry.

GSO said that to continue growth in industrial production in the future, the industrial sector should increase the index of consuming products to reduce inventory because the inventory index of the sector in the first eight months witnessed a year-on-year surge of 9.8 percent, higher than the 8.9 percent year-on-year growth in the first eight months of 2016.