As the coronovirus restrictive measures in Qatar and other parts of the world have started easing in a phased manner, the economic activities and industrial production in Qatar are showing signs of recoveries. Despite the lockdown and other safety measures put in place, the monthly Industrial Production Index (IPI) of Qatar for June 2020 amounted to 104.9 points, showing an increase of 0.7 percent compared to the previous month (May 2020), mainly driven by a solid growth in the manufacturing sector.
When compared on annual basis the IPI decreased by 0.6 percent compared to the corresponding month last year (June 2019), data released by the Planning and Statistics Authority (PSA) show.
This index details the growth of various industrial sectors in economy such as “Mining”, “Manufacturing”, “Electricity production”, and “Water production and desalination”. 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 Index consists of three main components: “Mining” with a relative importance of 83.6 percent, “Manufacturing” with a relative importance of 15.2 percent, “Electricity” with a relative importance of 0.7 percent, and finally “Water” with a relative importance of 0.5 percent.
The monthly analysis of the Mining sector index showed a decrease by 1.2 percent compared to the previous month (May 2020), as a result of the decrease in the quantities of “crude oil and natural gas” by 1.2 percent, while “Other mining and quarrying” showed an increase by 7.6 percent. When compared to the corresponding month of the previous year (June 2019), the IPI of Mining decreased by 1.2 percent.
The “Manufacturing” sector index showed a solid increase of 9.8 percent in June compared to the previous month (May 2020). The increase seen in the group include: “Manufacture of Cement and other non-metallic mineral products” by 28 percent, followed by “Manufacture of refined petroleum products” by 17.2, “Manufacture of chemicals and chemical products” by 8.6 percent, “Manufacture of beverages” by 5.8 percent, “Manufacture of rubber and plastics products” and “Manufacture of basic metals” by 3.9 percent each, and “Manufacture of food products” by 1.0 percent.
As for “Printing and reproduction of recorded media”, the Production was stopped during the month of June 2020, due to the Corona 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 June 2019, an increase of 2.1 percent was recorded, affected by the following groups: “Manufacture of chemicals and chemical products” by 9.6 percent, followed by “Manufacture of food products” by 5.1 percent. However, a decrease recorded in “Manufacture of refined petroleum products” by 14.1 percent, “Manufacture of basic metals” by 13.7 percent, “Manufacture of Cement & other non-metallic mineral products” by 6.7 percent, “Manufacture of rubber and plastics products” by 3.2 percent, and “Manufacture of beverages” by 2.9 percent.
In the “Electricity” sector, an increase of 18.7 percent was noticed in the production of “Electricity” between June 2020 and the previous month, while the annual decrease of 3.9 percent was seen when comparing with June 2019. An increase of 4.7 percent was noticed in the production of ‘‘Water’’ between June 2020 and the previous month (May 2020). Comparing with corresponding month (June 2019), an increase of 8.3 percent was recorded.
