Chief Statistician Uzir Mahidin said the modest expansion of 1.9% in the mining segment and 4.2% in the electricity sector contributed to the IPI uptrend.

However, he said the manufacturing sector output turned negative 0.1% after two consecutive months of positive growth.

On a month-on-month comparison, Uzir said the IPI contracted 0.9% as compared to the 1.9% growth recorded in October 2023.

“The decrease in the manufacturing output was due to the lower output production in the export-oriented industries, which dropped by 2.7%.

“The contraction was mainly attributable to the fall in the manufacture of computer, electronics and optical products (-8.6%); manufacture of coke and refined petroleum products (-1.8%); and the manufacture of wood and products of wood and cork (-1.9%),” he said in a statement.

Uzir said the performance was in line with the country’s export performance, which had been trending downward since March 2023 and recorded a negative 5.9% in November.

He said the export-oriented industries slipped by 2.2% compared to the preceding month.

On the other hand, Uzir said the domestic-oriented industries remained resilient by registering an increase of 5.8% in November 2023, boosted mainly by the 10.9% in the manufacture of food processing products; manufacture of fabricated metal products, except machinery and equipment (8.9%); and manufacture of other non-metallic mineral products (6.9%).

“The domestic-oriented industries rebounded 3.7% as against the negative 1.4% registered in October 2023,” he said.

For the 11 months of January to November 2023 performance, Uzir said the IPI rose at a slower rate of 1% compared to 7.1% in the same period in 2022.

“The expansion was supported by the electricity index (2.3%), manufacturing index (0.9%) and mining index (0.6%),” he added.