Philippine manufacturing output contracts in March

Source: Xinhua | 2020-05-06

The Philippine Statistics Authority (PSA) said on Tuesday that the performance of manufacturing production in the Philippines contracted in March 2020.

Based on the preliminary results of the Monthly Integrated Survey of Selected Industries (MISSI), the PSA said the value of production index (VaPI) for manufacturing sector continued to drop at an annual rate of 11.3 percent in March 2020.

PSA head Claire Dennis Mapa said this decline was faster than the reported decreases in the previous month at 1.0 percent and in March 2019 at 4.4 percent.

Mapa said the reduction in VaPI was largely due to the decreases in the indices of 17 major industry groups. The first three, which had at least 30 percent annual declines, were petroleum products at -40.5 percent; tobacco products, -30.9 percent; and miscellaneous manufactures, -30.2 percent, he added.

According to PSA data, year-on-year volume of production Index (VoPI) contracted 6.3 percent in March 2020, from a positive growth of 4.0 percent in the previous month. In March 2019, VoPI shrank at a faster rate of 8.8 percent.

Fifteen major industry groups pulled down the VoPI with the following major industry groups exhibiting at least 25 percent decreases: petroleum products at -34.3 percent; tobacco products, -33.9 percent; and miscellaneous manufactures, -29.0 percent.