Uruguay’s manufacturing industry production increased 0.6 percent year-on-year in January, boosted by pharmaceutical production, the National Statistics Institute (INE) reported yesterday, Monday.
With an advance of 41.1 percent and a weight in the total of 1.6 percentage points, the manufacture of pharmaceutical products was in January the division with the highest positive impact on the Manufacturing Industry Physical Volume Index (IVFIM).
It was followed by petroleum refining and beverage manufacturing, with increases of 23.6 and 11.4 percent, respectively, and impacts of 1.5 and 0.7 points.
Meanwhile, the division with the highest negative impact was food processing, with a 5 percent decline and an effect of -2.2 percentage points due to a drop in the meat processing industry.
The IVFIM grew by an average of 3.6 percent throughout 2022 compared to the previous year, with a solid positive incidence in the food processing sector, and accumulated an advance of 3.0 percent in the mobile last year.
The government of President Luis Lacalle Pou expects the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) to have grown by 4.8 percent in 2022, a result that will be officially announced next week.