Factory output continued to accelerate, albeit at a slower pace, in the first month of the year due to strong production in tobacco as well as wood, bamboo, cane, rattan articles and related products.

In its Monthly Integrated Survey of Selected Industries (MISSI), the Philippine Statistics Authority (PSA) reported Wednesday, March 9, that country's volume of production index (VoPI) went up by 16.5 percent in January. The index slid 14.5 percent in the same period last year.

On a month-on-month basis, VoPI slowed from 21.3 percent last December.

The expansion in VoPI was brought about by the positive growth rates of 16 industry divisions.

Of these, manufacture of tobacco products; and manufacture of wood, bamboo, cane, rattan articles and related products were the major contributing factors with growth rates of 88.4 and 86.8 percent, respectively.

On the contrary, the remaining six industry divisions recorded downturns which was led by manufacture of wearing apparel with -24.2 percent annual rate.

The PSA said only 17.8 percent of the manufacturing firms surveyed operated at full capacity in January. Average capacity utilization of these factories stood at 67.9 percent.

Almost half or 47.9 percent of the establishments operated below 70 percent and 34.3 percent of the respondents operated at 70 percent to 89 percent.

The value of production index (VaPI) during the month increased at a slower rate as it posted a 21.3 percent jump last January.

Major sector that reported a strong two-digit increase was tobacco with 88.1 percent. Of the three industry divisions that recorded decreases, the manufacture of wearing apparel registered the fastest annual decline of 22.4 percent.

Volume of net sales year-on-year improved by 9.8 percent, while value continued to grow at a slower rate of 14.2 percent.