Saudi Arabia's industrial production index increased by 17.7 percent during July compared to the same period a year ago.
According to Arab News, official data showed that growth was mainly due to higher output in three sub-sectors: mining, manufacturing, electricity and gas supply.
According to a report by the Saudi General Authority for Statistics, mining rose 14.1 percent in July from a year earlier as Saudi Arabia increased oil production by more than 10 million barrels per day in July 2022.
The report added that manufacturing activity increased by 32.6 percent compared to the same month last year. Electricity and gas supply increased by 5%.
Although the IPI is also showing positive trends, its growth in April slowed to 26.7 year-on-year growth for the third consecutive month.
The IPI saw an increase of 1.6 percent on a month-on-month basis led by mining and quarrying, its most heavily weighted 74.5 percent component, which rose by a modest 1.6 percent.
However, electricity and gas supply rose 14.6 percent this month, but its small share made it an outlier in the index.
The overall IPI is characterized by growth that started in May 2021.
Earlier it had underperformed due to the two-year-long effects of the Corona epidemic.
Looking at performance over the past four months, the fall in IPI was driven by slower growth in mining and quarrying, whose share halved to 10.5 percentage points in the period from 21.1 percentage points in April.
In contrast, manufacturing's share rose to 7.4 percentage points in July from 5.7 in April as the sector's annual growth increased to 32.6 percent from 25.1 percent in July.
