HANOI, Jan. 7 (Xinhua) -- Vietnam's national index of industrial production rose 8.86 percent on-year in 2019, the country's General Statistics Office announced on Tuesday.
Main driver of the surge, the processing and manufacturing sector, went up 11.29 percent, contributing 2.23 percentage points to the overall growth.
Electricity production and distribution sector grew 9.14 percent, contributing 0.44 percentage points, and water supply and waste management grew 7.72 percent, contributing 0.05 percentage points.
Between January and December, production of raw steel and iron witnessed the largest output expansion on-year, at 33.4 percent, followed by oil and petrol (up 22.2 percent), television set (up 15.1 percent), and aquaculture fee (up 13.8 percent).
Industrial products with significant output reductions included liquefied petroleum gas (down 3.4 percent), crude oil (7.7 percent), motorbikes (8.1 percent), refined sugar (13.7 percent), and phones components (13.8 percent).
As of December 1, the total number of employees in the industrial sector rose 2.8 percent on-year. Employment in the processing and manufacturing businesses and electricity production and distribution ones both went up 3 percent, said the office.
