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The Philippine manufacturing sector saw a slower decline in volume and a recovery in value in March 2025
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The value of production index for the manufacturing section grew 0.4% while the volume of production index registered a slower decline of 0.2% in March
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The manufacture of food products, transport equipment, and computer, electronic and optical products contributed to the trend in both VaPI and VoPI in March
The Philippine manufacturing sector saw a slower decline in volume and a recovery in value in March 2025, according to the Philippine Statistics Authority (PSA).
The value of production index (VaPI) for manufacturing grew 0.4% in March 2025 from a 0.6% decline in February 2025 and 6.2% drop in March 2024, according to PSA’s latest Monthly Integrated Survey of Selected Industries (MISSI).
The volume of production index (VoPI), on the other hand, registered a slower decline of 0.2% in March 2025 from a 1.5% decrement in February 2025 and 5.1% drop in March 2024.
With these, the average growth rate of VaPI and VoPI for January to March 2025 were at 0.9% and 0.2%, respectively.
The expansion in VaPI in March was mainly attributed to the faster annual increase in the manufacture of food products at 19.2%, contributing 35.4% to the uptrend and having the highest weight in the computation of VaPI for the period.
Other primary contributors were the annual increments in the manufacture of transport equipment at 5.9%, and the faster increase of manufacture of computer, electronic and optical products at 3.6%.
Aside from the top three contributors, 15 other industry divisions exhibited growth in their VaPI in March, while the other four industry divisions posted annual drops. The highest year-on-year decline was noted in the manufacture of basic metals at 38.4%.
For VoPI, the same three top industry divisions contributed to the upturn, with the manufacture of food products recording a faster increase at 18.8%, and the manufacture of transport equipment and the manufacture of computer, electronic and optical products posting 5% and 2.2% increases, respectively.
Fourteen other industry divisions recorded annual increments in VoPI in March 2025 while five industry divisions exhibited decreases.
The value of net sales index (VaNSI) for the manufacturing section registered a slower increment of 7.2% in March 2025 from an annual increase of 9.6% in February 2025.
The volume of net sales index (VoNSI) also saw a slower annual increase of 6.5% in March 2025 from 8.7% in February 2025.
The slower growth in both VaNSI and VoNSI were attributed to the slower increment in in the manufacture of basic metals, which contributed more than 40% to the trend during the period.
Based on MISSI’s responding establishments, the average capacity utilization rate for the manufacturing section in March 2025 was reported at 76.2%, higher than the 75.9% in February.
All industry divisions reported capacity utilization rates of more than 50% during the month. The top three industry divisions in terms of reported capacity utilization rate were manufacture of machinery and equipment except electrical at 85%, manufacture of food products at 80.5%, and other manufacturing and repair and installation of machinery and equipment at 80.3%.
The proportion of establishments that operated at full capacity (90% to 100%) was 28.5 percent of the total number of responding establishments. Meanwhile, 44.2 percent operated at 70 to 89 percent capacity, and 27.3 percent operated below 70 percent capacity.
