The Index of Industrial Production (IIP) is an important indicator of economic performance and its main purpose is to provide a measure of the short-term changes in the volume of industrial production over a given period of time.  It can be used to identify the turning points in economic development at an early stage. Monthly IIP will be released quarterly with a time lag of 63 days. The base year for the IIP compiled by DCS is 2015. IIP value of difference base years cannot be compared.

The weights for compiling the IIP were estimated using the Annual Survey of Industries, 2015 conducted by the DCS. The weights were derived based on the value added of the products of manufacturing sector. The manufacturing of food products reported to be the major contributor for the total industrial value added (35.2%) of the country and followed by wearing apparels (19.8%) and non- metallic mineral products (7.8%).

According to the IIP values released for the third quarter 2016, the volume of industrial production has increased by 3.8% in the month of July 2016 compared to the annual average index of 2015. The Production of industry reported increase in productions for the months of August and September the index compiled were 3.5% and 1.6% respectively. The industrial production of the manufacturing sector for the third quarter of 2016 has increased by 3.0% compared to average production in 2015.

Furniture industry (20.9%), Basic pharmaceutical products showed remarkable increases (20.3%) in productions during July 2016 compared to the average monthly production in 2015. The volume of food products has decreased by 1.0 % in July and it has increased by 3.0% and 0.5% in August and September 2016 respectively. Coke and refined petroleum products showed an increase in July but in August and September decreased by 4.1% and 3.3% respectively. The increase corresponding to Food products and beverages for the third quarter was 1.5% and 4.4% respectively. Electrical equipment industry showed 4.9%, 0.5%, 16.1% decrease in production during the months July, August and September respectively and this industry showed a quarterly decrease of 7.2% compared to the average production of this industry in 2015.