The monthly Industrial Production Index (IPI) of Qatar for May 2020 reached 104.2 points, an increase by 6.0% compared to the previous month, and decrease by 2.0% when compared to the corresponding month of 2019.
Issued by the Planning and Statistics Authority, this index details the growth of various industrial sectors in economy such as mining, manufacturing, electricity production, and water production and desalination.
The Industrial Production Index consists of three main components: ‘Mining’, with a relative importance of 83.6%, ‘Manufacturing’ with a relative importance of 15.2%, ‘Electricity’ with a relative importance of 0.7%, and finally ‘Water’ with a relative importance of 0.5%.
The index of the mining sector showed an increase by 7.9% compared to the previous month (April 20200), as a result of the increase in the quantities of “crude oil and natural gas” by 7.9%, while ‘Other mining and Quarrying’ showed a decrease by 7.6%. When compared to the corresponding month of the previous year (May 2019), the IPI of mining decreased by 1.2%.
The index of the manufacturing sector showed a decrease by 3.4% compared to the previous month (April 2020). The groups showed a decreases include: ‘Manufacture of cement and other non-metallic mineral products’ by 13.8%, followed by ‘Manufacture of food products’ by 10.8%, ‘Manufacture of refined petroleum products’ by 7.0%, ‘Manufacture of chemicals and chemical products’ by 2.9%, and ‘Manufacture of rubber and plastics products’ by 2.8%.
However, an increase was recorded in two groups: ‘Manufacture of beverages”’ by 4.2%, and ‘Manufacture of basic metals’ by 2.3%. As for ‘Printing and reproduction of recorded media’, the production was stopped during the month of May 2020, due to the coronavirus pandemic. The relative weight of this group was distributed to the rest of the sub-groups of the manufacturing sector, and then the index for industrial production was calculated.
On the other hand, in terms of annual change, comparing to May 2019, a decrease of 6.0% was recorded, affected by the following groups: ‘Manufacture of cement and other non-metallic mineral products’ by 30.3%, followed by ‘Manufacture of refined petroleum products’ by 22.7%, ‘Manufacture of basic metals’ by 17.7, ‘Manufacture of rubber and plastics products’ by 6.6%, and ‘Manufacture of beverages’ by 5.5%. However, an increase of 1.5% each was recorded in, ‘Manufacture of food products’ and ‘Manufacture of chemicals and chemical products’.
An increase of 24.3% was noticed in the production of ‘Electricity’ between May 2020 and the previous month (April 2020), while the annual decrease was 2.8%, compared with May 2019.
A decrease of 8.5% was noticed in the production of ‘Water’ between May 2020 and the previous month (April 2020). Comparing with corresponding month (May 2019), an increase of 3.6% was recorded.

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