Good year for factory output in 2017


Last year, manufacturing put in its best year for three years, official figures show.


Factory output increased by 2.8% in 2017 compared with the previous year. That’s the best performance since 2014 when the increase was 2.9%.


The annual increase in the production industries (mining and utilities as well as manufacturing) was 2.1%. This is the fourth consecutive annual rise and the strongest growth since 2010, when it rose by 3.2%.


The Office for National Statistics (ONS) said that in the final quarter of 2017 manufacturing output increased by 1.5% compared with the previous quarter and output was 3.4% higher than the same quarter 2016.


Metal goods and drugs were the driving force behind the increase with subsector increases of 5.7% and 4.1%. 


The production industries saw output increase by just 0.5% in the final quarter of 2017 compared with the previous quarter, but output was 2.3% higher than the same quarter 2016.


www.ons.gov.uk/economy/economicoutputandproductivity/output/bulletins/indexofproduction/december2017