Qatar's industrial production surges 6.4% y-o-y in Jan

Qatar's industrial sector displayed a solid start this year as the country’s production saw a 6.4% surge year-on-year in January, mainly on robust extraction in hydrocarbons and higher production in rubber and plastics products, cement and food products, according to the Planning and Statistics Authority (PSA).

The country’s Industrial Production Index (IPI) saw a 2.1% month-on-month jump in January 2021, as the country substantially lifted the Covid-19 related restrictions.

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 an 2.9% increase on a yearly basis on account of 2.9% expansion in the extraction of crude petroleum and natural gas and 11.3% in other mining and quarrying sectors.

On a monthly basis, the index showed 8.4% increase owing to 8.4% and 1.6% rise in the extraction of crude petroleum and natural gas and other mining and quarrying sectors respectively.

However, the manufacturing index, with a relative weight of 15.2%, saw a 1.7% decline year-on-year in January 2021 due to 80.8% plunge in the printing and reproduction of recorded media, 16.8% in the production of beverages, 13.4% in basic metals, 4.6% in food products and 0.2% in chemicals and chemical products.

Nevertheless, there was 19% surge in the production of cement and other non-metallic mineral products, 10.2% in rubber and plastics products and 2.3% in refined petroleum products.

On a monthly basis, the manufacturing index shrank 2.8% in January this year as there was 43% drop in the printing and reproduction of recorded media, 5.9% in the production of refined petroleum products, 4.6% in beverages and 3.2% in chemicals and chemical products.

However, there was a 4.2% increase each in the production of cement and other non-metallic mineral products and rubber and plastics products, 2.9% in food products and 1.3% in basic metals.

According to the Qatar Financial Centre Purchasing Managers’ Index for January 2021, the manufacturing was one of the sectors that were seen as strongest-performing area.

Electricity, which has 0.7% weight in the IPI basket, saw its index gain 1.1% on a yearly basis but reported 4.1% decline month-on-month this January.

In the case of water, which has a 0.5% weight, there was a 1.9% and 0.2% jump year-on-year and month-on-month respectively in January 2021.