The General Authority for Statistics said that The Industrial Production Index (IPI) increased by 4.1% in March 2023 compared to March 2022. The IPI continued to show positive growth rates due to the high production in mining and quarrying, manufacturing activity and electricity and gas supplies.

The Authority issued a statistical release on IPI as follows:

Annual growth rates of IPI

During 2022, the industrial production index recorded positive growth rates that peaked in April 2022, the annual growth rates began to gradually decrease from one month to another since May 2022, to record 4.1% increase in March 2023.

Mining and quarrying main driver of IPI in March 2023

Relative weights of the mining and quarrying, manufacturing and electricity and gas supply sectors in the IPI are 74.5%, 22.6% and 2.9%, respectively. Thus, the trend of the industrial production index in the mining and quarrying sector dominates the trend in the general IPI.

In March 2023, mining and quarrying grew by 1.6% compared to March 2022 as Saudi Arabia increased its oil production to more than 10 million barrels per day in March 2023.

Manufacturing activity increased by 10.5% compared to the same month of the previous year.

Electricity and gas supplies increased by 16.6%. Compared to February 2023, overall IPI increased by 0.2%, due to the increase of production in the three sub-sectors. Mining and quarrying sector increased by 0.1%, manufacturing sector increased by 0.3%, and electricity and gas supplies increased by 1.9%.