Output soars in Latvia

Industrial output in Latvia last December increased by 11.9 percent from December 2001, reported the Latvian national statistics office.

"The year-on-year growth was partly due to the fact that number of business days in December 2002 was larger than in December 2001," explained the statistics office.

Year-on-year, production in December 2002 grew by 39.2 percent in extracting industry and mining, by 14.8 percent in processing industry and by 5.7 percent in electric power, gas and water supply.

The food industry saw 14.5 percent growth in production last December.

In terms of sectors, the largest growth was observed in beverages, with their output rising 24.3 percent, while fish processing suffered the greatest drop by 33.2 percent.

Last December large growth was reported in production of other means of transport (boats, ships, railway engine repairs, etc.) - by 82 percent from December 2001.

There was also 27.9 percent growth of finished metalwork, 21.9 percent growth of rubber and plastic items, 21.3 percent growth of products from non-metal minerals (ceramics, concrete, cement, etc.) and 20.6 percent in the timber industry.