The industrial production index fell by 1% in 2017 due to a drop in production in the extractive industries of 8.9%, while the increase in production in manufacturing industries was very modest, not exceeding 0.4%, according to statistics released Tuesday by the National Statistics Institute (INS).
The decline in production in the extractive industries is due to the 11.5% decrease in output of the energy products extraction sector.
On the other hand, production increased by 10.1% in the non-energy extraction sector, following the increase in crude phosphate production.
Manufacturing production rose 0.4% in 2017, mainly due to an increase in production in the mechanical and electrical industries by 3.3%, agrifood by 1.4% (because of the growth observed in the production of olive oil), rubber and plastic of 4.7% and textiles, clothing and leather by 0.4%.
On the other hand, production fell in the manufacturing sector for other non-metallic mineral products (-5.5%), following the decline observed in cement production, petroleum refining (-9.4%) and the chemical industry (-1.7%).
For industry as a whole, the industrial production index for the fourth quarter of 2017 was down 1.3% year-on-year. Manufacturing output dropped 0.4% as a result of the decline in the petroleum refining industries (-53.7%), manufacture of other non-metallic mineral products (-6%) and the chemical industry (-4.3%).
In contrast, industrial production rose in the mechanical and electrical (+ 4.3%), food (+ 4.9%), textile, clothing and leather (+ 1.8%) and rubber and plastics industries (+ 6.4%).
The production of the extractive industries sector fell by 7.2%, as output in the energy extraction sector went down by 5.8% and non-energy product extraction by 16.1%, following the decline observed in the production of crude phosphate.
