Euro Area: Industrial production stable in January
Industrial output was stable over the previous month in seasonally-adjusted terms in January, mirroring December’s 1.3% increase. January’s result reflected a rise in the production of non-durable consumer goods offsetting declining production of energy, capital and durable consumer goods.
Looking at the individual economies for which data is available, industrial output expanded in six countries, while it contracted in 11 countries and remained stable in Spain. Looking at the most important economies, production increased in Germany and in France, while it decreased in Italy and the Netherlands.
On an annual basis, industrial production decreased 1.3% in January, contrasting December’s 2.0% rise. Lastly, annual average growth in industrial production declined to 7.5% from December’s 7.9%.
Commenting on the release, Bert Colijn, senior economist at ING, sees risks to the outlook ahead:
“The war in Ukraine is causing disruptions of a different nature and for different types of inputs. This is already resulting in new production hiccups for eurozone industry. At the same time, new lockdowns in China—most notably in key manufacturing hub and harbour, Shenzhen—caused by the Omicron variant of the coronavirus are likely to result in further disruptions of the kind we saw in 2021. This leads to concern about manufacturing performance from here on, leading to a weakening outlook for eurozone industry.”