The national industrial production index (IIP) in January expanded 7.9 per cent year-on-year, much lower than the growth rate of 22.1 per cent in January 2018, according to theGeneral Statistics Office (GSO).

Despite its growth over last January’s level, the index fell 3.2 per cent from December 2018.

The processing and manufacturing sector, responsible for a large part of domestic industrial production, reported IIP growth of 10.1 per cent while the IIP growth of electricity production and distribution and the water supply and waste-sewage treatment sectors reached 8.8 per cent and 9.4 per cent, respectively.

Meanwhile, the mining sector’s IIP continued its downtrend, decreasing by 6.7 per cent year on year. Some major industrial products achieved very high production growth in January such as gasoline (95.2 per cent), raw iron and steel (68.6 per cent), beer (47.1 per cent).

However, some others had only slight growth or even declines in IIP year-on-year, such as fabrics made from natural fibers (up 1.1 per cent), rolled steel (up 0.7 per cent), NPK fertiliser (down 1 per cent), phone parts (down 2.3 per cent), sugar (down 4.6 per cent), natural gas (down 5.3 per cent), mobile phones (down 5.4 per cent), liquefied petroleum gas (down 6.2 per cent) and crude oil (down 17.1 per cent).

The GSO said Hai Phong’s IIP growth led the country with an increase of 23.6 per cent, followed by the provinces of Vinh Phuc with 18.2 per cent and Hai Duong with 11.9 per cent.

Ha Noi and HCM City had IIP surges of 6.2 per cent and 5.1 per cent, respectively.

However, Bac Ninh and Ba Ria-Vung Tau saw IIP reductions of 1.8 per cent and 5.3 per cent, respectively. — VNS