Sept IPI grew 4.7 per cent y-o-y

KUALA LUMPUR: The Industrial Production Index (IPI) grew 4.7 per cent in September 2017 compared with the same month of the previous year, the Department of Statistics said.

The expansion in September was supported by positive growth in all indices, namely manufacturing (5.7 per cent), mining (2.1 per cent) and electricity (2.2 per cent).

“The major sub-sectors which recorded an expansion in September 2017 were: petroleum, chemical, rubber and plastic products (4.9 per cent), electrical and electronic products (6.6 per cent) and food, beverages and tobacco products (8.0 per cent),” the department said in a statement.

The increase in the mining sector was mainly due to an increase of 0.7 per cent in the index for crude oil and 3.9 per cent in the index for natural gas.

Meanwhile, manufacturing sales continued to record a strong growth of 10.6 per cent, rising to RM65.4 billion compared with RM59.1 billion reported a year ago.

The department said that the significant increase in sales value was due to the increase in electrical and electronic products (9.2 per cent), petroleum, chemical, rubber and plastic products (15.5 per cent) and, non-metallic mineral products, basic metal and fabricated metal products (6.9 per cent).

“These three sub-sectors contributed 80.6 per cent to the sales value of the manufacturing sector,” it added.

Total employees engaged in the sector also increased 2.5 per cent or 25,943 persons to 1,054,682 million compared with 1.03 million in September 2016. — Bernama