This uptick was largely due to a 1.4% rise in the mining and quarrying sector. While manufacturing levels remained consistent with the previous month, electricity and gas supplies saw a reduction.

The Industrial Production Index (IPI), which measures changes in industrial production, indicated that this slight increase was overshadowed by a 10.5% year-on-year decline in December.

The decrease is predominantly linked to Saudi Arabia's strategic oil production cut, following the OPEC+ agreement, causing mining and quarrying outputs to fall by 14.3% from the same time last year.

Saudi Arabia's oil production reduction to 8.9 million barrels per day represents a substantial drop, marked by a 500,000 barrel per day cut instituted in April and sustained through December 2024. An additional cut of 1 million barrels per day was pledged from July to December 2023 to maintain market stability.

The early 2022 peak in the IPI reflected robust mining, quarrying, and manufacturing activities. However, these rates deflated in 2023, especially in the mining and quarrying sectors.

Compared to December of the previous year, the manufacturing sector shrank by 3.3%, while electricity and gas supplies broadly expanded by 25.8%.

The mining and quarrying sector carries the most weight in the IPI, accounting for 74.5%, followed by manufacturing at 22.6%, and electricity and gas supply at 2.9%, which shapes the overall trend of the index.