Santhosh V. Perumal

A robust growth in the manufacturing sector — especially cement, refined petroleum goods, chemicals, rubber and plastics and beverages — helped Qatar's industrial production expand month-on-month in June 2020, according to the official statistics.

The country’s Industrial Production Index (IPI) was up 0.7% on a monthly basis but declined 0.6% year-on-year in June 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 1.2% shrinkage and month-on-month on account of 1.2% dip in the extraction of crude petroleum and natural gas but witnessed 7.6% growth in other mining and quarrying sectors.

On a yearly basis, the index showed a 1.2% fall owing to a 1.2% decline in the extraction of crude petroleum and natural gas and 13.7% in other mining and quarrying sectors.

The manufacturing index, with a relative weight of 15.2%, saw a stupendous 9.8% surge month-on-month in June this year owing to a 28% increase in the production of cement and other non-metallic mineral products, 17.2% in refined petroleum products, 8.6% in chemicals and chemical products, 5.8% in beverages, 3.9% each in rubber and plastics products as well as basic metals and 1% in food products.

On a yearly basis, the manufacturing index shot up 2.1% as there was a 9.6% jump in the production of chemicals and chemical products and 5.1% in food products; even as refined petroleum products registered 14.1% plunge in production, basic metals (13.7%), cement and other non-metallic mineral products (6.7%), rubber and plastics products (3.2%) and beverages (2.9%).

As for “printing and reproduction of recorded media”, the production was stopped during June 2020 due to the pandemic. The relative weight of this group was distributed to the rest of the sub-groups of the manufacturing sector.

Electricity, which has 0.7% weight in the IPI basket, saw its index surge 18.7% on yearly basis but weakened 3.9% on monthly basis in June 2020.

In the case of water, which has a 0.5% weight, there was a 4.7% and 8.3% growth month-on-month and year-on-year respectively this June.