The Index of Industrial Production (IIP) in the first four months of 2020 grew by about 1.8% year on year, the slowest pace in many years, due to COVID-19, according to the General Statistics Office (GSO).

A packaging factory in Kim Dong district, Hung Yen province (Photo: VNA) 

The processing-manufacturing sector rose 3%; electricity production and distribution 2.9%; and water supply, waste and wastewater management and treatment 3.6%. Meanwhile, the mining industry contracted 6.8%.

The GSO said the complex developments of the COVID-19 pandemic around the world have led to a shortage of input materials, which has subsequently hit industrial production.

Motorized vehicle production was down 14.2%; beverage production 13.9%; and crude oil and natural gas extraction 10.8%.

Other key products that followed the downward trend are beer (24.1%), automobiles (23.8%), sugarcane (23.5%), motorcycles (16.6%), crude oil (12%), and liquefied petroleum gas (11.8%).

However, some industries still recorded fair growth such as medicine, pharmaceutical chemical product, and herbal material manufacturing (25.9%), coke and refined petroleum product production (16.9%), and metal ore mining (16.5%).

In April alone, the IIP dropped by 13.3% month on month and 10.5% year on year.

The GSO said the COVID-19 pandemic’s impacts have forced a large number of businesses to lay off employees, adding that the number of employees at industrial firms on April 1 declined 1.1% month on month and 1.6% year on year.