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FACTORY output continued its decline in November with
machinery production suffering from the biggest drop in both volume
and value, the National Statistics Office reported on Thursday.
Based on its latest Monthly
Integrated Survey of Selected Industries (MISSI), the NSO said the
country’s volume of production index contracted 15.3 percent,
slightly easing from the 16.6-percent drop seen last October.
Manufacturing volumes had grown a
modest 4 percent in November 2005.
According to NSO, the volume
decline in November was due to the two-digit contraction in the
output of the eight major sectors, led by machinery excluding
electrical, electrical machinery, textiles, tobacco, petroleum
products, rubber products, footwear and wearing apparel, and
nonmetallic mineral products.
Factories on average were
operating at 80.3 percent, about the same as last October.
Value wise, manufacturing output
also contracted 3.7 percent, slower than the October drop of 8.7
percent. Machinery (excluding electrical) suffered the biggest
decline of 48.8 percent, followed by textiles, petroleum products,
tobacco, rubber products and nonmetallic mineral products.
The latest MISSI appears to
contradict the government’s economic growth outlook for the fourth
quarter last year. The National Economic and Development Authority (NEDA)
said that exports-led manufacturing may have been the main driver
for the expected 5.1-percent to 5.9-percent growth for the last
three months of 2006.
NEDA Director General and
Socioeconomic Planning Secretary Romulo L. Neri said the government
is still studying how it can reconcile the MISSI report with that of
the country’s national income accounts.
--Likha C. Cuevas
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