UNIDO Statistics presents this report on the observed growth of world manufacturing production in the fourth quarter of 2017. The quarterly growth estimates are based on the indices of industrial production. Reports on earlier quarters are available on UNIDO’s website.

 

 

 

 

Major findings

• Global manufacturing output rose by 4.7 per cent in the fourth quarter of 2017 compared to the same quarter of the previous year. This impressive gain was attributable to strong growth since the beginning of the year. The manufacturing output growth was estimated at 3.5 per cent in industrialized economies, and 6.1 per cent in developing and emerging industrial economies.
• The upward growth trend of industrialized economies as a whole is attributable to the robust dynamics in all industrialized regions, namely manufacturing production expanded by 4.9 per cent in Europe, by 3.2 per cent in East Asia and by 2.9 per cent in North America.
• Latin America has continued to recover from its downturn in 2016 and rose by 2.9 per cent. Asian developing economies achieved a relatively higher growth rate at 6.5 per cent. According to UNIDO’s latest estimates, African manufacturing experienced a 2.9 per cent year-to-year gain in the fourth quarter of 2017.
• Medium-high and high-technology manufacturing industries continued to outperform other industry groups, increasing the year-by-year growth rate to 6.0 per cent in the fourth quarter of 2017.

World_manufacturing_production_2017_Q4