Industrial production growth eases in December
Activity in the industrial sector lost steam in December. Industrial production increased a seasonally-adjusted 0.4% from the previous month, below November’s 1.3% rise and the slowest growth rate since September 2017. However, the result still overshot market analysts’ expectations of a 0.2% increase. December’s slowdown mainly reflected contracting production of capital goods.
On an annual basis, industrial production expanded a notably 5.2%, the best result since August 2011 (November: +3.7% year-on-year). For the full year 2017, industrial production grew 3.0%, double the pace of 2016.
Among the Euro area economies for which data is available, the fastest monthly growth rates in industrial production were registered in Ireland (+3.0% month-on-month) and Slovenia (+2.7% mom). On the flipside, Slovakia had the worst performance with industrial output contracting 2.7% over the previous month. Among the region’s largest economies, industrial output growth gained steam in France (+0.6% mom) and Italy (+1.6% mom). However, growth slowed in Spain (+0.9% mom) and industrial output dropped in Germany (-0.5% mom).