HANOI, July 29 (Xinhua) -- Vietnam's national index of industrial production rose 9.4 percent on-year in the first seven months of this year, the country's General Statistics Office announced on Monday.
Main driver of the surge, the processing and manufacturing sector, went up 10.7 percent, contributing 8.2 percentage points to the overall growth.
Electricity production and distribution sector grew 10 percent, contributing 0.9 percentage points, and water supply and waste management grew 7.6 percent, contributing 0.1 percentage points.
Between January and July, production of raw steel and iron witnessed the largest output expansion on-year, at 57.1 percent, followed by oil and petrol (up 45.1 percent), television set (up 23.9 percent), and liquefied petroleum gas (up 16.4 percent).
Industrial products with significant output reductions included nitrogen-phosphorous-potassium fertilizers (down 3.3 percent), crude oil (6.9 percent), motorbikes (8.7 percent), phones components (15.1 percent) and refined sugar (16.9 percent).
As of July 1, the total number of employees in the industrial sector rose 1.9 percent on-year. Employment in the processing and manufacturing businesses and electricity production and distribution ones went up 2 percent and 3.7 percent, respectively, said the office.
