Qatar’s Industrial Production Index rises 3.3% in May 2018

The index evaluates the growth of various industrial sectors in the economy such as mining with a relative significance of 83.6%, manufacturing (15.2%), electricity generation (0.7%) and water production and desalination (0.5%). 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 mining sector index showed an increase by 3.6% compared to the previous month (April of 2018), as a result of the increase in the quantities of crude oil and natural gas produced, and the decrease in “other mining and quarrying” by 0.2%. When compared to the corresponding month of the previous year (May 2017), the IPI of mining increased by 6.3%. The manufacturing sector index shows an increase of 1.7% in May 2018 compared to the previous month (April-2018), because of the increase in production of four groups: manufacture of chemicals and chemical products by 3.0%, manufacture of basic metals by 2.8% and manufacture of beverages by1.6%.Manufacture of food products increased by 1.2%. However, a decrease was recorded in other four groups: manufacture of cement and other non-metallic mineral products” by 5.5%, “Printing and reproduction of recorded media” by 2.5%, “Manufacture of rubber and plastics products by 1.8% and manufacture of refined petroleum products by 0.8%. On the other hand, in terms of annual change, comparing to May 2017, a decrease of 0.4% was recorded by the following groups: printing and reproduction of recorded media by 17.5%, manufacture of cement and other non-metallic mineral products by 6.2%, manufacture of chemicals and chemical products by 2.6%.However, a rise was recorded in the manufacture of rubber and plastics products by 18.5%, followed by manufacture of refined petroleum products by 8.1%, manufacture of basic metals by 5.0%, manufacture of beverages by 3.9% and manufacture of food products by 3.5%.The electricity generation index shows an increase of 22.6% in the production of electricity between May 2018 and the previous month. (April-2018), while the annual decrease ( comparing with May 2017), was 23.1%.The water index, when compared May 2018 with the previous month, shows a decrease of 1.2%.