Despite the pervasive lockdown, Qatar’s monthly Industrial Production Index (IPI) in April 2020 stood firm at 98.3 points, showing a month-on-month decrease of only 2.5 percent compared to the previous month (March 2020), official data released yesterday showed.
This monthly decline in economic and industrial production is much lower than many countries, including some advanced economies which witnessed double-digit fall. When compared on annual basis with the IPI of the corresponding month last year (April 2019), the index declined by 3.2 percent, according to preliminary data released by the Planning and Statistics Authority.
The fall in the overall index can be mainly attributed to lockdown due to Coronavirus disease (COVID-19) pandemic which affected the production and other economic activities in several groups, including the “Manufacture of Cement & other non-metallic mineral products” by 22.5 percent, followed by “Manufacture of basic metals” by 17.1, “Manufacture of refined petroleum products” by 15.2 percent, “Manufacture of beverages” by 9.7 percent, and “Manufacture of rubber and plastics products” by 4.1 percent. However, an increase was recorded in, “Manufacture of food products” by 9 percent, and “Manufacture of chemicals and chemical products” by 2.2 percent.
The industrial production index reflects the level of economic activities in the country. 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 Industrial Production 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. When analysed by sector wise the index of “Mining” sector index in April 2020 showed a decrease by 2.6 percent compared to the previous month (March 2020), as a result of the decrease in the quantities of “crude oil and natural gas” by 2.6 percent, while “Other mining and quarrying” showed a decrease by 13.2 percent.
When compared to the corresponding month of the previous year (April 2019), the IPI of Mining decreased by 3.3 percent.
The “Manufacturing” sector index showed a decrease by 2 percent compared to the previous month (March 2020), The groups showed a decreases include: “Manufacture of refined petroleum products”, and “Manufacture of Cement and other non-metallic mineral products” by 19.0 percent each, followed by “Manufacture of beverages” by 4.5 percent, “Manufacture of rubber and plastics products” by 2.3 percent, “Manufacture of basic metals” by 2.0 percent, and “Manufacture of food products” by 1.3 percent.
However, an increase was recorded in “Manufacture of chemicals and chemical products” by 2.5 percent. As for “Printing and reproduction of recorded media”, the production was stopped during the month of April 2020, due to the Coronavirus disease (COVID-19) pandemic.
The relative weight of this group was distributed to the rest of the subgroups of the manufacturing sector, and then the index for industrial production was calculated. In the “Electricity” sector, an increase of 14.4 percent was noticed in the production of power between April 2020 and the previous month (March 2020), while the annual basis, it increased by 10.4 percent compared to April 2019 index. An increase of 6.6 percent was noticed in the production of ‘‘Water’’ between April 2020 and the previous month (March 2020). Comparing with corresponding month (April 2019), an increase of 19.9 percent was recorded
