THE country’s manufacturing output posted its fifth consecutive month of positive growth in October, according to the latest Monthly Integrated Survey of Selected Industries (MISSI) of the Philippine Statistics Authority (PSA).
The data showed the Volume of Production Index (VoPI) recorded a year-on-year increase of 5.1 percent in October 2022. This rate is faster than the annual increase of 4.1 percent in the previous month.
This year, the country recorded contractions in May and April but since June, the VoPI has been posting positive growth. In October 2021, VoPI expanded at an annual growth rate of 27 percent.
“Out of the 22 industry divisions, 14 reported positive annual growth, which was led by manufacture of machinery and equipment except electrical with 81.8 percent annual growth rate,” PSA said.
However, eight industry divisions posted annual decreases, with manufacture of electrical equipment exhibiting the largest contraction of 56.9 percent.
Meanwhile, the manufacturing sector posted its highest average capacity utilization rate for the year at 72.4 percent in October 2022.
Data showed this is also the sixth consecutive month when the average capacity utilization rate breached the 70 percent level. The data showed the average capacity utilization rate for manufacturing sector in October improved from the 71.5 percent posted in September. In October 2021, the average capacity utilization rate was at 67.4 percent.
“There were 20 out of 22 industry divisions with more than 60 percent average capacity utilization rate, led by manufacture of computer, electronic, and optical products [80.3 percent], manufacture of machinery and equipment except electrical [80.1 percent], and manufacture of wearing apparel [79.3 percent],” PSA said.
The PSA also said almost one-fifth of responding establishments operated at full capacity. The proportion of establishments that operated at full capacity was 19.9 percent of the total number of responding establishments.
Meanwhile, some 40.4 percent operated at 70 to 89 percent capacity, while 39.7 percent operated below 70 percent capacity. The MISSI report continues to monitor the production, net sales, inventories, and capacity utilization of selected manufacturing establishments to provide flash indicators on the performance of the manufacturing sector.