Viet Nam's IIP in January declined due to the Lunar New Year holiday at the end of January. — Photo dangcongsan.vn

Viet Nam's index of industrial production (IIP) in January declined by 5.5 per cent year-on-year and 11.8 per cent month on month, according to the General Statistics Office (GSO).

This reduction was due to the Tet (Lunar New Year) holiday at the end of January this year, reducing the number of working days, said GSO economists.

The mining sector saw the strongest reduction of 18.4 per cent year on year in IIP in the first month this year.

The processing and manufacturing sector, responsible for a large part of domestic industrial production, reported IIP reduction of 4.8 per cent while the IIP of electricity production and distribution fell by 3.5 per cent.

Meanwhile, the IIP of the water supply and waste-sewage treatment sectors rose by 1.6 per cent year on year.

Many industrial products had a strong reduction in output, such as automobiles (38 per cent), sugar (30.4 per cent), motorbikes (22 per cent), liquefied petroleum gas (21.2 per cent), coal (18.5 per cent), milk powder (18.4 per cent) and raw steel (15.1 per cent).

Other products with decreased outputs included televisions (14 per cent), animal food (12.7 per cent), casual clothes (12.1 per cent), fertiliser (11.5 per cent), electric equipment (11.1 per cent) and crude oil (10.7 per cent).

However, some industrial products achieved growth in production, including metal ore (34.3 per cent), steel bars and steel angle bars (23.5 per cent) and mobile phones (10.4 per cent).

GSO officials said the reduction in industrial production in January was temporary due to the long Tet holiday.

Production was expected to recover soon because, in January, the number of labourers in industrial enterprises increased by 0.5 per cent year on year, they said. — VNS