BAKU, Azerbaijan, May 12
By Nargiz Sadikhova - Trend:
Goods production in Kazakhstan increased by 5.8 percent over first four months of 2020, Kazakhstan’s Minister of National Economy Rusltan Dalenov said, Trend reports with reference to the press office of Kazakhstan’s prime minister.
At the same time, he said, services output decreased by 4 percent. As a result, GDP as a whole dropped by 0.2 percent.
Dalenov said that the services sector declined due to restrictions in connection with the quarantine measures taken. Annual inflation was 6.8 percent.
Growth in the manufacturing sector was achieved by increasing production in the manufacturing industry by 7 percent, in mining by 6 percent, in construction by 5.5 percent and agriculture by 2.2 percent.
At the same time, the volume of services in transport decreased by 11 percent, trade by 8.9 percent, administrative services by 4 percent, real estate operations by 2.7 percent. Communication services increased by 9.6 percent during the reporting period of 2020.
“If we consider April separately (the quarantine month), then in April 2020, compared to April 2019, the services sector decreased by 17.5 percent. In particular, trade and transport services decreased by a third, administrative services by 22.5 percent and operations with real estate by 9.9 percent in April this year compared to April last year. Such a decrease is due to restrictive quarantine measures,” said Dalenov.
Foreign trade turnover amounted to $21 billion during the reporting period. Export increased by 4.2 percent to $13.9 billion, while imports fell to $7.1 billion. Industrial production increased by 5.9 percent. Manufacturing output grew by 7 percent.
High growth rates remained in engineering (growth by 25.4 percent), pharmaceuticals (by 24.2 percent), production of construction materials (by 15.6 percent) and light industry (by 13.9 percent), Dalenov said.
Dalenov added that investments in fixed assets slowed down to 0.9 percent. Construction increased by 5.5 percent. At the same time, the production of local building materials is actively growing and its output increased by 15.6 percent. At the same time, output in agriculture grew by 2.2 percent.
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