National IIP up 6.2 per cent in H1

The national index for industrial production (IIP) increased 6.2 per cent year-on-year in the first half of this year, the General Statistics Office (GSO) reported.

The metric was lower than the growth of 7.2 per cent recorded in the first half of 2016, GSO’s economic experts said.

The low growth rate was due to the reduction of 8.2 per cent in production in the mining industry, which was the lowest since 2011. This created big impact on the growth of national gross domestic product (GDP), GSO director Nguyễn Bích Lâm said.

However, industrial production recorded positive changes in the first half this year, because the growth in the industrial production at 6.2 per cent in this period was higher than the 5.8 per cent growth in the first five months, he said.

The national IIP in the second quarter this year was estimated to rise 7.8 per cent, higher than the growth at 4.3 per cent in the first quarter.

Other industrial products having drop in production included crude oil (12.5 per cent), gas (8.7 per cent) and liquid petroleum gas – LPG (11.2 per cent).

Meanwhile, many products enjoyed a surge in IIP, such as electric production (7.2 per cent), raw steel (25.6 per cent), rolled steel (26.1 per cent), cement (8.2 per cent), fertilizer (19.4 per cent) and food for seafood products (5.5 per cent).

The processing and manufacturing sector’s IIP rose 10.5 per cent year-on-year.

However, the GSO’s experts said the growth of industrial production in the first half this year was not steady, because the consumption index rose 8.2 per cent year-on-year, lower than the growth of 8.8 per cent year-on-year in the first half of 2016.

Some products had low consumption, including electronic, computer, optical, processed food, furniture, medicine and chemical products.

The inventory index increased 10.2 per cent year-on-year in the first half this year, higher than the 9 per cent year-on-year growth in the first half of 2016.

Products having high inventory rate between 17 per cent and 90 per cent involved drinking products, metal products and electric equipment.

GSO experts said that by the year-end, the processing and manufacturing sector would have more opportunities to develop some projects that would be made operational, while other sectors would also develop further, including pharmaceutical sector and electronic production sector

Source: VNS