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Friday, March 29, 2024

Manufacturing output contracts 73.4 percent in March

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The country’s manufacturing industry performance contracted in March, marking its sharpest decline since August last year, according to data released by the Philippine Statistics Authority (PSA) on Friday.

Based on the latest Monthly Integrated Survey of Selected Industries (MISSI), the Volume of Production Index (VoPI) contracted 73.4 percent in March. This was the lowest since August when the VoPI declined 82.2 percent.

“The drop in VoPI was brought about by the contractions in the indices of five industry divisions. Among these, the top contributor was manufacture of coke and refined petroleum products with an annual rate of -97.4 percent,” PSA said.  

The data also showed average capacity utilization rate for the sector rose to an average of 61 percent in March from 60.4 percent in February.

However, the disaggregated PSA data showed 114 establishments comprising nearly a third of firms or 27.3 percent of those who responded to the survey, operating below 50 percent capacity.

PSA said 17 of the 22 industry divisions had at least 50 percent average capacity utilization rate, which was led by manufacture of furniture at 80 percent.

Other manufacturing and repair and installation of machinery and equipment operated at an average of 73.5 percent and manufacture of electrical equipment, 72.5 percent.

“Meanwhile, among industry divisions that rose during the period, the fastest growth was recorded in manufacture of fabricated metal products, except machinery and equipment at 85.5 percent,” PSA said.

The MISSI is now termed the Production Index and Net Sales Index. It is a report that monitors the production, net sales, inventories, and capacity utilization of selected manufacturing establishments to provide flash indicators on the performance of the manufacturing sector.

Read full article on BusinessMirror

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