Estonia: Industrial production growth plunges in February

According to Statistics Estonia, industrial production growth dropped notably in February, following a seven-month high of 7.7% in January. Growth in February came in at a meagre 1.8%, marking a 20-month low. The slowdown in industrial production growth came entirely on the back of subdued manufacturing sector output, which remained virtually unchanged year-on-year (February: +0.3%; January: +10.4%). Meanwhile, mining and energy production expanded robustly in annual terms in February, contrasting January’s decline and pushing the overall growth rate up, yet failing to fully compensate for a slowdown in manufacturing output growth.

Looking at seasonally-adjusted month-on-month data, industrial production fell 2.6% in February, contrasting January’s 1.9% growth, and marking the strongest contraction since July 2017. In turn, the annual average variation in industrial production dropped from 8.2% in January to 7.3% in February.

Estonia Industrial Production Forecast

FocusEconomics Consensus Forecast panelists are still taking the latest result into account and currently expect industrial production to grow 4.0% in 2018, which is up 0.4 percentage points from last month’s projection. The panel sees industrial production increasing 3.7% in 2019.