Factory output slowed in December due to weak manufacturing of transport equipment, computer, electronic, optical products and basic metals, the Philippine Statistics Authority (PSA) reported.
In the Monthly Integrated Survey of Selected Industries (MISSI) released on Thursday, Feb. 9, the country's volume of production index (VoPI) grew 4.8 percent in December, down from 5.9 percent in the previous month.
The index growth also weakened compared with 19.2 percent posted in the same month in 2021.
The slower pace VoPI growth was brought about by weak improvements of the top three industry divisions, such as manufacture of transports equipments, which dropped by one percent, a reversal of the 14.3 percent growth in November.
Slower growth was also seen in manufacturing of computer, electronic and optical products, increasing by only 21.3 percent from 25.8 percent a month ago.
The decline in manufacturing output of basic metals, meanwhile, worsened in December after it contracted by 37.5 percent from 29.2 percent in the previous month.
In addition to these three, slowdowns were also observed in the growth rates of the indices of eight industry divisions.
On the contrary, there were eight industry divisions that registered higher growth rates in December, which include the manufacture of food products.
Among these industry divisions, manufacture of fabricated metal products, except machinery and equipment posted the highest annual growth rate of 52.9 percent.
According to the PSA, only 24.4 percent of the manufacturing firms surveyed operated at full capacity in December.
About 40.7 percent of the establishments operated at 70 percent to 89 percent capacity and 35 percent of the respondents operated below 70 percent.
The value of production index (VaPI) also increased at a much slower rate as it posted a 10.1 percent jump last December from 12.5 percent in the previous month.
The slower growth of VaPI was mainly brought about by the weaker rise in the index of manufacture of transport equipment industry division with 3.2 percent from 20.5 percent in November
The manufacture of transport equipment contributed 39.6 percent to the downtrend of the VaPI of the manufacturing sector in December.
Out of the 22 industry divisions for the manufacturing sector, this is the third industry division with the highest weight in the computation of VaPI.