Industrial production slows by 0.7% in April

• Statistics office cites too many holidays as the culprit

The Index of Industrial Production (IIP), which measures the volume of industrial production, has decreased slightly by 0.7 percent in April compared to the corresponding month of the previous year, the Census and Statistics Department (DCS) Director General A.J. Satharasinghe said.

He attributed the change to the reduced number of working days in April 2018 compared to the same month in 2017, as both Vesak and the Sinhala Tamil New Year were celebrated in April. 

IIP reported for the month of April 2018 and 2017 were 97.7 and 98.3 respectively. 

IIP conveys the status of production in the industrial sector of an economy in a given period of time, in comparison with a fixed reference point in the past. It reveals the short-term changes of the industrial sector.

DCS compiles number of economic indicators including IIP. The IIP is a vital measurement of identifying the drivers of economic growth and evaluating economic performance of the country and it is based on volume of production of manufacturing industries.

The manufacturing industries – ‘Manufacture of wood and products of wood’, ‘Manufacture of leather and related  products’, and ‘Manufacture of wearing apparels’ – have shown remarkable increases of 27.6 percent, 11.2 percent and 6.3 percent respectively in their volume of production during the month of April 2018 compared to that of April 2017. The volume of food products in April 2018 has increased by 0.5 percent compared to the same month in previous year.

 However, manufacturing industries’ volume of ‘Manufacture of other non-metallic mineral products’, ‘Manufacture of rubber and plastic products’ and ‘Manufacture of furniture’ have reported decreases by 15.1 percent, 14 percent and 10.7 percent respectively during this period.