ISLAMABAD: Industrial production fell by 3.5 percent in December, marking the sixth consecutive monthly decline and highlighting continued weakness in the country’s large-scale manufacturing (LSM) sector.
Analysts say the downturn followed the government’s move to curb imports on rapidly dwindling foreign reserves.
The least performing sectors were textiles, garments, chemicals, pharmaceuticals, automobiles, cement, non-metallic minerals and fertilizers. Similarly, in the first half of the current fiscal year, LSM production declined by 3.68 percent compared to the same period last year.
However, compared to the previous month (November 2022), LSM production increased by 312.38 percent, Pakistan Bureau of Statistics (PBS) said on Wednesday.
Economists say the government’s ‘quantitative tightening’ policy and aggressive hike in policy rates to curb runaway inflation also hit industrial activity hard, as these measures made bank financing more expensive. went
Over the past few months, factories and industrial units have reduced their working hours and some have even shut down their plants due to lack of inventory.
From July 2022, LSM growth has been red and contracted to 16.5% over June 2022 and 1.68% over July 2021. Similarly, it has decreased by 0.02% in August 2022, 2.7% in September, 7.63% in October, 6.15% in November. %, and now in December 2022, it shrank to 3.51%. Outputs of sectors weighted heavily in LSM’s quantum index number contracted. These were textiles, iron and steel, chemicals, automobiles, pharmaceuticals, cement, and non-metallic mineral products.
On a year-on-year basis, in December 2022, 21.24 percent of textile production, 12.7 percent of pharmaceuticals, 8.64 percent of non-metallic minerals, 8.12 percent of iron and steel, 3.8 percent of chemicals (of which chemical products production There was a decrease of 9.2% and fertilizer by 0.06%) and cement production also decreased by 8.4% compared to the same month last year.
Similarly, the production of machinery and equipment also decreased by 77.9%, automobiles by 36.2%, computers, electronics and optical products by 33.8%. Production of wood products decreased by 74.2%, tobacco by 28.8%, paper and board by 1.5%, beverages by 12.45%, leather products by 0.72%, and other transport goods by 27.5% compared to December 2021. .
Among the few sectors that showed positive growth were apparels by 25.5 percent, furniture by 182 percent, footballs by 20.3 percent, food by 11 percent and production of coke and petroleum products by 3.5 percent.
Compared to the same period in FY22, production during July-December FY23 increased only by 46.6% in garments, 5.7% in leather, 105.5% in furniture, and 51.9% in football.
While 2.4% in food production, 8.5% in beverages, 23.5% in tobacco, 13% in textiles, 66% in wood products, 2.8% in paper and board products, 11.2% in coke and petroleum products, pharmaceuticals Products decreased by 21.6 percent, rubber products by 6 percent, non-mat by 7 percent. Mineral products 11.7%, computer, electronics, and optical products 20%, machinery and equipment 47.9%, and automobiles 30.2%.
