The industrial production index (IPI) showed a 0.5% decrease for the year 2016 as a whole (1.8% in Q4) against 2.4% in 2015), the National Institute of Statistics (French: INS) Tuesday said.

This is mainly due to a declining production in food processing (- 2.1% ) with olive oil production edging down (130.4 thousand tonnes in 2016 against 302.2 thousand tonnes in 2015), as well as in the rubber & plastic processing (-3.5%) and the extraction of energy products (-8,7%).

Meanwhile, production rose in non-energy mining (+5.4%) after the resumption of crude phosphate production (3, 663.6 mln tonnes in 2016 against 3,240.4 mln tonnes in 2015) and chemical industry (+13.9%).

Production was also up 2% and 3.5% in mechanical and electrical engineering and the oil refining industry respectively.

source: TAP