Qatar's Industrial Production Index Up in January 2018

Doha, March 19 (QNA) - Ministry of Development Planning and Statistics (MDPS) said that the Industrial Production index (IPI), for January 2018 amounted to 106.6 points, increased by 1.2 percent compared to the previous month (December -2017), while it is increased by 3.0 percent, when compared to the corresponding month of 2017. The MDPS issued today a press release for January 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 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 index of the mining sector showed an increase by 2.1 percent compared to the previous month (December of 2017), as a result of the increase in the quantities of crude oil and natural gas produced by 2.2 percent, and "other mining and quarrying" by 8.0 percent. When compared to the corresponding month of the previous year (January 2017), the IPI of Mining increased by 3.0 percent. For manufacturing a decrease of 2.8 percent is recorded in January 2018 compared to the previous month (December-2017), and that was due to the decrease in production of four groups: "Manufacture of basic metals" by 13.9 percent, "Manufacture of chemicals and chemical products" by 2.4 percent, "Manufacture of beverages" by 0.8 percent, and "Printing and reproduction of recorded media" by 0.4 percent. However an increase was recorded in four other groups : "Manufacture of Cement & other non-metallic mineral products" by 2.9 percent, "Manufacture of food products" by 2.1 percent, Manufacture of refined petroleum products " by 1.2 percent, and "Manufacture of rubber and plastics products" by 0.6 percent". On the other hand, in terms of annual change, comparing to January 2017, an increase of 3.4 percent was recorded, affected by the following groups: "Manufacture of food products" by 20.6 percent, " Manufacture of chemicals and chemical products " by 5.0 percent, "Manufacture of refined petroleum products" by 2.8 percent, "Manufacture of basic metals" by 2.3 percent, "Printing and reproduction of recorded media" by 1.1 percent. However a decline recorded in, "Manufacture of Cement & other non-metallic mineral products" by 8.9 percent, "Manufacture of rubber and plastics products" by 2.7 percent, "Manufacture of beverages" by 1.9 percent. For electricity a decrease of 12.0 percent in the production of "Electricity" group between January 2018 and the previous month (December-2017), while the annual increase (comparing with January 2017), was a 3.8 percent. For water when comparing January 2018 with the previous month, an increase of 0.9 percent was noticed, and a decrease of 3.7 percent was recorded when comparing with corresponding month (January 2017) in the previous year. (QNA)