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MANUFACTURING indices in April gained some lost ground
but remained unimpressive, with some major sectors like
petroleum, textiles, tobacco, and footwear and wearing
apparel still stuck in production doldrums.
The
Value of Production Index (VaPI) recovered from a
five-month contraction for a paltry 0.1- percentage
point rise during the month, while the Volume of
Production Index’s (VoPI) 15th month of decline was
tighter at 1.53 percent.
These
indices are presented under the Monthly Integrated
Survey of Selected Industries report of the National
Statistics Office (NSO), which also issues changes in
the value of volume of net sales and the capacity
utilization rate that measures a company’s actual
utilization of productive capacity. Contributing to the
VaPI’s miniscule uptick were double-digit increases in
publishing (42 percent), wood and wood products (43.6
percent), nonmetallic mineral products (17.4 percent)
and transport equipment at 14.6 percent. Those that
weighed down the index, meanwhile, were textiles (-45.6
percent), tobacco (-35.9 percent), machinery excluding
electrical (-26.8 percent) and footwear and wearing
apparels at -14.1 percent.
On the
VoPI, the gainers were wood and wood products (50.3
percent), publishing and printing (17.4 percent),
nonmetallic mineral products (15.6 percent) and
transport equipment (14 percent) while losers were
textiles (-46.2 percent), tobacco (-35.4 percent),
machinery excluding electrical (-27.6 percent) and
footwear and wearing apparel at -22.5 percent.
Average
capacity utilization rate in April, meanwhile, was
estimated at 80.1 percent, with sectors like petroleum
products, paper and paper products, electrical
machinery, leather products, basic metals, rubber
products, food manufacturing and chemical products
enjoying such levels.
Almost a
fifth of the responding firms, meanwhile, recorded
capacity rates between 60 percent and 69 percent and a
tenth registered 50-percent to 59-percent capacity
levels.
Various
government agencies including the NSO, the National
Statistical Coordination Board (NSCB) and the Bangko
Sentral ng Pilipinas are working to improve the Missi
data set after experts questioned the survey’s
reliability and comparability with other
government-issued data. NSCB generates the quarterly
national income accounts.
Missi
users had, for instance, complained that the monthly
manufacturing survey’s mixed signals make it difficult
for them to plan their future production actions.
Lourdes
V. Homecillo, NSO’s focal person for the manufacturing
survey, earlier assured BusinessMirror the Missi results
were reliable in relation to the current data set the
statistics agency is working with.
“What
the upcoming revisions intend is for more scientific
selection of sample representatives of each industry.
But we can say the current set is still representative
of industry concentration, although concentrated on
large firms,” Homecillo said. |
