Industrial production rises slightly

The lagging growth was partly due to the week-long break during the Tet holiday, but it is still the lowest IIP January rise in the past 4 years, with January 2016 reporting a growth of 5.9%.

Regardless, several sectors experienced a hike in production, such as textile’s 16% rise, metal moulding’s 14.8% growth, and vehicle engines’ 9.9% increase.

Several other main industrial productions also achieved fair growth compared to the same period in 2016, such as television sets growing by 35.2%, steel by 22.3%, cattle feed by 12.9%, processed seafood rose by 12.5%, crude steel by 7.2%, chemical paint by 7.7% and cement by 8.8%.

Other products had had little to no growth, even experiencing some decreases due to difficult markets and low consumer demand, including leather footwear dropping by 2.8%, natural textile up by only 0.9%, motorbikes up by 1.6%. More drastically, powdered milk dropped by 11.5%, refined sugar dropped by 12.3%, crude oil decreased by 15% and natural gas sagged by 23.5%.

Inventory index for January 2017 grew by 8.3%, lower than the 9% rise in the same period in 2016, which shows consumption is returning to a steadier pace.

By the end of December 2016, IIP for the entire 2016 experienced an 8.5% growth, lower than the 11% increase for 2015.