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RIYADH: ����ֱ��’s Industrial Production Index rose 7.3 percent year-on-year in December 2022, primarily driven by high production in mining and quarrying, and manufacturing activities, a new report released by the General Authority for Statistics showed.   

After months of negative trends in 2019 and 2020 due to the COVID-19 pandemic, ����ֱ��’s IPI turned positive in May 2021 and has been growing continuously since then.   

GASTAT report noted that the mining and quarrying sector rose by 4.1 percent in December 2022 compared to the same month in 2021.   

����ֱ��’s mining and quarrying activities also increased as the Kingdom raised its oil production to more than 10 million barrels per day in December 2022.   

The report further pointed out that manufacturing activities increased by 18.5 percent in December 2022, compared to December 2021.   

According to GASTAT, IPI is an economic indicator that reflects the relative changes in the volume of industrial output, and it is calculated based on the industrial production survey.   

The report said that the relative weights of the mining and quarrying, manufacturing and electricity and gas supply sectors in the IPI are 74.5 percent, 22.6 percent and 2.9 percent, respectively.  

“Thus, the trend of the industrial production index in the mining and quarrying sector dominates the trend in the general IPI,” it added.   

In December 2022, ����ֱ��’s electricity and gas supplies decreased by 6.5 percent compared to the same month in 2021.  

The GASTAT report which was released on Feb. 9, however, noted that overall IPI decreased by 0.3 percent in December 2022 when compared with November 2022.   

This decline was due to the decrease in the mining and quarrying sector which fell by 0.3 percent, it added.   

According to the report, the manufacturing sector remained unchanged in December 2022 compared to the previous month, while electricity and gas supplies decreased by 5.3 percent.   

Even though ����ֱ��’s IPI is still showing positive trends, its growth has slowed down for the eighth month in a row from a 26.7 year-on-year growth reported in April 2022. 

It should be also noted that ����ֱ��’s IPI growth in December is the slowest in 2022 as it went below the 11.1 percent year-on-year growth reported in January last year.