Riyadh, Saudi Arabia — Saudi Arabia’s Industrial Production Index (IPI) continued to decline for the 13th month in a row, falling 8.8 percent in January compared to Jan 2022, on the decrease in mining and quarrying activity.
Given the relative importance of mining and quarrying activity, which amounted to 61.4 percent of the index weight, the trend of the industrial production index in the mining and quarrying sector dominates the trend in the general IPI, the Kingdom’s General Authority for Statistics said.
Followed by the activity of manufacturing industry, and the activity of electricity, gas, steam, and air conditioning supplies, with a relative importance of 35 percent and 2.8 percent, respectively, and the activity of water supply, sewerage, waste management and remediation was 0.69 percent.
The IPI measures the relative change and reflects the production quantities of materials and goods, which have been converted from raw materials to consumables in their final form as goods, for the purpose of achieving a return.
Compared to December 2023, IPI increased by 0.3 percent supported by mining and quarrying activity, manufacturing activity and water supply, sewerage, waste management and remediation activities.
The sub-index for mining and quarrying activity in January 2024 decreased by 14.3 percent compared to the same month of the previous year, as Saudi Arabia decreased its oil production to 8.9 million barrels per day in January 2024.
On the other hand, the sub-index for mining and quarrying activity increased by 0.1 percent compared to December 2023.
Compared to January 2023, the sub-index for manufacturing activity increased by 0.1 percent, supported by the increase in the manufacturing of chemicals and chemical products which increased by 1.7 percent, manufacturing of paper and paper products, and electrical devices by 7.7 percent and 5.4 percent, respectively.
While manufacturing of coke and refined petroleum products decreased by 4.7 percent, and manufacturing of food products by 8.2 percent.
Compared to December 2023, the sub-index for manufacturing activity increased by 1.1 percent, supported by the manufacturing of coke and refined petroleum products, which increased by 1.7 percent, followed by the manufacturing of chemicals and chemical products and electrical devices by 1.4 percent each. While the manufacturing of furniture decreased by 0.5 percent.