Despite growth in manufacturing, Mexico’s industrial activity stalls during March

14 May, 2018

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The indicator of industrial activity in Mexico reflected a stagnation during March, as it did not present any variation with respect to the same month of 2017, revealed the National Institute of Statistics and Geography (Inegi) in its monthly report.

Two of the four major items that make up the industrial activity indicator recorded drops in March, with the steepest fall, of 6.5%, posted in mining, a sector that has seen declines for 46 months in a row.

Within the mining sector, the sub-index that showed the mayor drop was "services related to mining" (such as exploration of minerals or drilling of oil and gas wells) with a 13.5% drop.

Another item with a negative result was the “generation, transmission and distribution of electricity, water and gas supply by pipelines to the final consumer,” which had a 2.8% decline, ending a streak of two consecutive months of hikes.

The construction sector grew for the fourth month in a row, although it barely achieved a marginal advance of 0.1% at annual rate.

Within this segment, buildings, one of the items with the highest incidence in industrial production, grew 0.8% annually, while construction civil engineering works showed a decline of 8.3% and specialized works for construction rose 7.9%.

The manufacturing industry was the component that reported the highest growth, recording an annual increase of 3.4%. Within this indicator, only 3 of the 21 areas that comprise it showed declines in its activity: the wood industry (0.3%), the manufacture of petroleum products and coal (33.4%) and the chemical industry (0.4%).

Compared to the previous month, industrial activity also registered a stagnation during February. This monthly variation was the result of a 1.5% decline in mining, a 0.7% drop in construction, a 4.3% drop in generation, transmission and distribution of electricity, water and gas, as well as an increase of 2.1% in the manufacturing industries.

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