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Saturday, April 20, 2024 8:51 GMT
Qatar’s food and chemical production witnessed robust growth; yet its overall industrial production was on the downswing year-on-year this April, according to the official estimates. The country’s Industrial Production Index (IPI) declined 3.2% year-on-year and 2.5% month-on-month in April 2020, said the figures released by the Planning and Statistics Authority (PSA).The PSA introduced IPI, 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 a base period 2013. The mining and quarrying index, which has a relative weight of 83.6%, saw a 3.3% shrinkage year-on-year on account of 3.3% decline in the extraction of crude petroleum and natural gas and 16.7% in other mining and quarrying sectors.On a monthly basis, the index showed a 2.6% fall owing to a 2.6% dip in the extraction of crude petroleum and natural gas and 13.2% in other mining and quarrying sectors. The manufacturing index, with a relative weight of 15.2%, showed a 3.7% yearly fall in April 2020 on a 22.5% plunge in the production of cement and other non-metallic mineral products, 17.1% in basic metals, 15.2% in refined petroleum products, 9.7% in beverages and 4.1% in rubber and plastics production; even as there was 9% increase in the production of food products and 2.2% in chemicals and chemical products.On a monthly basis, the manufacturing index sank 2% owing to 19% contraction in the production of refined petroleum products as well as cement and other non-metallic mineral products, 4.5% in beverages, 2.3% in rubber and metallic mineral products, 2% in basic metals and 1.3% in food products; while there was 2% jump in the production of chemicals and chemical products.Electricity, which has 0.7% weight in the IPI basket, saw its index surge 10.4% and 14.4% on yearly and monthly basis respectively in April 2020. In the case of water, which has a 0.5% weight, there was a 19.9% and 6.6% growth year-on-year and month-on-month respectively this April.