Qatar’s industrial production up in Dec on robust extraction of hydrocarbons, strengthened manufacturing sector

Robust extraction of hydrocarbons and strengthened manufacturing sector helped Qatar witness its industrial production scale up year-on-year in December 2019, according to the official estimates.
The country’s Industrial Production Index (IPI) witnessed a 1.9% and 5.3% expansion year-on-year and month-on-month respectively in December 2019, 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 1.9% expansion year-on-year on account of 2% increase in the extraction of crude petroleum and natural gas, while there was a 10.1% decline in other mining and quarrying sectors.
On a monthly basis, the index showed a 5.8% surge owing to a 5.9% jump in the extraction of crude petroleum and natural gas; even as other mining and quarrying sectors witnessed a 2% contraction.
The manufacturing index, with a relative weight of 15.2%, showed a 2.3% yearly increase in December 2019 on a 16.4% rise in the manufacture of basic metals, 10.1% in beverages, 2.7% in chemical and chemical products, 0.8% in food products and 0.4% in printing and reproduction of recorded media.
Nevertheless, there was an 8.9% decline in the manufacture of cement and other non-metallic mineral products, 5.4% in refined petroleum products and 2.1% in rubber and plastics products.
On a monthly basis, the manufacturing index shot up 3.4% owing to a 7.1% increase in the manufacture of chemicals and chemical products and 1.1% in food products; whereas there was a 4.5% shrinkage in the manufacture of basic metals, 2.3% in beverages, 2.2% in refined petroleum products, 1.8% in rubber and plastics products and 0.1% in cement and other non-metallic mineral products.
Electricity, which has 0.7% weight in the IPI basket, saw its index plummet 15.3% and 15% on yearly and monthly basis respectively in December 2019.
In the case of water, which has a 0.5% weight, there was a 9.5% and 5% decrease year-on-year and month-on-month respectively last December.