According to the Algerian National Statistics Office (ONS), the production of the public sector in Algeria has increased by 5.6% in the second quarter of 2019, generated by significant improvements in many sectors, placing the average of the first half at 4.9% compared to the same period in 2018. The most important industrial sectors that contributed to this performance are the steel, metallurgy, mechanical, electrical and electronic industries (with an increase of 32.6% during the first six months of 2019), as well as those of leather, footwear and chemical industries. In detail, the production of the iron and steel sector and the processing of cast iron and steel recorded an increase of 155%, the construction of industrial vehicles 97.8%, the manufacture of electrical consumer goods by 64.3%, the manufacture of metal materials of 46.5% and the manufacture of electrical capital goods of 24.4%. However, some declines were recorded for the manufacture of metal capital goods (-72.5%), the production and transformation of non-ferrous metals (-62.8%) and the manufacture of metal furniture (-9.8% ).
The upward trend started in the second quarter of 2018 for the leather and footwear industries was confirmed in the first quarter of 2019 and reached a growth of over 15%, especially for intermediate goods (+ 20.2%). Production in the chemical industry sector increased by 7.2% in the first quarter of 2019 compared to the same period in 2018. This increase is mainly due to the improvement of the organic chemical branch (+ 112.6%), to manufacturing of other intermediate plastic goods (27.4%), the manufacture of other chemical products (24.3%) and finally the manufacture of pharmaceutical products (+ 3.5%). Production in the energy (electricity) sector recorded an increase of 7.3% in the first half of 2019 compared to the same period in 2018.
(ITALPRESS/MNA)