In August, the industry rose the most this year due to  holidays in the automotive industry

In August, the key sector of the Slovak economy, industry, was supported by a one-fourth year-on-year increase in manufacture of motor vehicles and slightly positive numbers in the energy sector. The result of the industry was mainly due to fewer holidays in August and in manufacture of transport equipment compared to last year. The decline persisted in the rubber and metallurgical sectors, as well as in some smaller sectors.

Industrial production¹⁾ of the SR increased by 4.6% year-on-year in August. It was the highest growth since the beginning of the year, while only in three out of eight months, the industry performed better than a year ago. In total, only 6 of the 15 monitored sectors of Slovak industry (special industrial groupings)²⁾ recorded a higher performance year-on-year, the development in the industrial sectors was fluctuating.

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Almost the entire August´s result was the most significant consequence of the high - up to a quarter - growth in manufacture of transport equipment by 27%. The influence of sectors is expressed through the so-called contributions³⁾, which take into account the rate of an increase/decrease combined with the weight of the sector in industrial structure and enable the hierarchization of the effects of individual sectors, this was an impact of plus 7.1 percentage points (p.p.) on the result of the industry. The high growth was due to the fact that this year, several manufacturers took fewer vacations during August than last year.

The positive result was also supported by growth in the significant sector- supply of electricity, gas, and steam by 7.1% (contribution 0.7 p.p.). Growth in manufacture of electrical equipment by 7.6% (contribution of 0.58 p.p.) also had a slight impact, as well as almost 10% plus in manufacture of pharmaceutical products and preparations.

However, the majority of sectors with a significant share were in negative numbers, manufacture of basic metals and fabricated metal products decreased by 9.5% year-on-year (contribution -1.08 p.p.), other manufacture, repair and installation of machinery decreased by 23.1% (contribution -0.97 p. p.), manufacture of rubber and plastic products by 7.4% (contribution -0.86 p. p.). Decreases of up to 10% were also recorded in manufacture of wood and paper products, as well as manufacture of coke and refined petroleum products.

On a month-on-month basis (compared to July 2023), after seasonal adjustment, industrial production increased by 4.5%.

In terms of breakdown according to the main industrial groupings, production of capital goods increased year-on-year by 13.4%, production related to energy and production of non-durable consumer goods also increased slightly. On the contrary, production of durable goods was by a fifth lower by 20.3%, and production for intermediate consumption was slightly lower.

In total, for the first eight months of 2023, industrial production decreased year-on-year by 1.2%. Out of 15 sectors, 10 still had lower year-on-year performance. The most significant effect on the result was a decrease in manufacture of rubber and plastic products by 10.4% (contribution -1.11 p.p.), as well as a quarter decline in manufacture of computer, electronic and optical products. The industry was mainly affected by a higher performance in manufacture of transport equipment by 6.6% (contribution +1.83 p.p.), also a slight growth in manufacture of electrical equipment.

The Statistical Office of the SR would like to inform the users that together with the publication of data for June 2023, it has conducted a revision of values of industrial production for previous months (since 2008) based on the supply of new data and the correction of error by reporting units in one sector.