(Sharecast News) – Industrial production fell more sharply than expected across the Eurozone in July, official data showed on Wednesday.
According to Eurostat, the European Union’s statistics office, industrial production fell by 1.1% on a seasonally-adjusted basis, compared with a downwardly-revised 0.4% uptick in June.
Analysts had been expected a 0.7% fall.
Across the EU, industrial production also fell by 1.1% in July after it rose 0.4% a month previously.
Year-on-year, industrial production fell 2.2% in the Eurozone and by 2.4% in the wider bloc.
Energy production rose by 1.6% in July, while intermediate goods edged ahead 0.2%. But both durable consumer goods and capital goods output fell sharply, by 2.2% and 2.7% respectively.
Among member states, Germany – the bloc’s biggest economy – recorded a 1.6% decline, while in Italy production eased 0.7%.
The biggest fall was in Ireland, where production slid 6.6%, reversing June’s 11.7% spike. However, Ireland’s industrial output data tend to be more volatile because of the large number of multinational companies there.
Industrial production rose 0.8% in France and by 0.2% in Spain.
Melanie Debono, senior Europe economist at Pantheon Macroeconomics, said: “Eurozone industrial production fell at the start of the third quarter. Assuming the headline figure is correct, the carry-over – if output held steady in both August and September at July’s level – suggests industrial production will have fallen by 0.8% this quarter, marking the fourth straight quarterly decline.”
Paolo Grignani, senior economist at Oxford Economics, said: “The print sets the stage for another weak quarter for the industrial sector, in line with the recent run of gloomy confidence data and our expectations.
“Looking ahead, we don’t expect a turnaround in the sector before the end of the year. We see the Eurozone industrial production falling by 1.5% in 2023, which would be the worst year for the manufacturing sector in the last decade, excluding the pandemic.”
