Agriculture and Industrial activities reported substantial positive growth rates of 6.1% and 5.5% respectively during the first quarter of 2021 according to the Department of Census and Statistics.
“It is because all agriculture and industrial related activities were permitted to continue their businesses throughout the country even during the period of imposed restrictions.”
Meanwhile, services activities expanded at a moderate rate of 3 % during this quarter when compared to the same quarter in 2020. In the first quarter of 2021, the agriculture activities as a whole have reported a substantial expansion by 6.1 percent when compared to the 6.5 percent of negative growth recorded in the first quarter of 2020. Most of the agriculture activities have reported positive growth rates.
Specially, ‘growing of tea’ (37.9%), ‘growing of cereals’ (34.8%), ‘fresh water fishing’ (27.0%), ‘growing of rubber’ (16.%), ‘growing of vegetables’ (14.5%), ‘growing of fruits’ (6.9%), ‘growing of oleaginous fruits; including coconut’ (6.4%), ‘animal production’ (5.5%), ‘forestry and logging’ (5.4%), ‘growing of spices’ (4.9%).
However, during this quarter, ‘marine fishing’ (16%) and ‘growing of rice’ (6.3%) have contracted significantly. During the first quarter of 2021, the overall industrial activities have reported a considerable level of growth by 5.5%.
This positive growth is basically underpinned by the expansion in the manufacturing, construction, mining and quarrying activities during this quarter.
The overall manufacturing industry grew by 6.8 percent during the first quarter of 2021 when compared to the same quarter in previous year.
Among the ‘Industrial activities’, the ‘construction’ activity, which corresponds to 6.3 percent of share within the industry sector, recorded a moderate growth of 3.4 percent. Following that growth in the construction activity, ’mining and quarrying’ activity too recorded a positive growth rate of 3.7 percent during this year.
The service sector too reported a moderate growth of 3 percent. This expansion in the services sector was supported especially by the sub activities of ‘telecommunication’ (19.1%), ‘IT programming consultancy and related activities’ (14.9%), ‘financial service activities’ (13.1%) and ‘insurance’ (11.4%).
In addition, the ‘wholesale and retail trade’ (3.7%), transportation of goods and passengers including warehousing (1. %), ‘other personal services’ (2 %) and ‘professional services’ (3.0 %) were expanded. However, during this quarter ‘accommodation, food and beverages services’ related activities further showed a downturn by 31.9% during this quarter, when compared to the first quarter of 2020.
0 comments: