Despite the spikes in demand during the Christmas season, manufacturing growth in December 2022 slid at 4.8 percent, down more than a point from November 2022, the Philippine Statistics Authority said on Thursday.
The PSA in its official report said the Value of Production Index or VaPi for manufacturing continued to register a two-digit year-on-year increment at 10.1 percent in December 2022, slower than the November 2022 annual growth of 12.5 percent.
In December 2021, manufacturing growth accelerated annually at a rate of 19.6 percent.
“The slower year-on-year growth of VaPi in December 2022 than its annual growth in November 2022 was predominantly brought about by the slower annual increase in the index of manufacture of transport equipment with 3.2 percent annual increase in December 2022, from 20.5 percent in November 2022,” the PSA said.
Further, it stated that the manufacture of transport equipment contributed 39.6 percent to the downtrend of the VaPi of the manufacturing sector in December 2022.
“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,” the PSA report said.
Aside from this, other main contributors to the slower annual volume growth rate in December 2022 were the manufacture of computer, electronic and optical products with a 24.1 percent annual increment during the period from 32.3 percent in the previous month, and the manufacture of basic metals with an annual rate of -36.0 percent in December 2022, from -27.2 percent in the previous month.
In addition to these, slowdowns were observed in the annual growth rates of the indices of nine industry divisions.
Growing industries
Amid sluggish growth in some sectors, there were eight industry divisions that registered higher annual growth rates in December 2022 than in November 2022, which include the manufacture of food products.