Riyadh – Mubasher: The overall Industrial Production Index of Saudi Arabia decreased by 24% on an annual basis in April, according to a report by the Saudi General Authority for Statistics (GaStat) on Thursday.

The decline in the Kingdom’s industrial production was dragged by a fall of 32.1% in mining and quarrying activity output.

Saudi Arabia has reduced its oil production to 8.1 million barrels per day (bpd) in April 2021 from 12 million bpd in the same month in 2020.

On the other hand, the Kingdom’s non-oil manufacturing activities increased 12.2% in April this year, compared to the same month in 2020. This marked the first positive growth of manufacturing since December 2019.

Electricity and gas supply activity saw a drop of 5.1% in April 2021, compared to the same month last year.

On a monthly basis, the industrial production index went down 1% in April compared to March this year.

Non-oil manufacturing activity in Saudi Arabia decreased 4.4% in April when compared to the previous month. The electricity and gas supply meanwhile was up 5.7% during the same timeframe.

GaStat’s figures earlier showed an annual plunge of 6.9% in the Kingdom’s industrial production in January 2021, due to lower production in mining and quarrying activity which fell by 6.2%.