Eurostat – the EU’s in-house statistics body – have today released figures that lay out the woes of September industrial output in the ‘euro area’.
After promising output in August, which saw 1.1% production growth within the EU28, September production in the EU as a whole dropped by 0.3%.
“In the euro area in September 2018, compared with August 2018, production of energy fell by 1.7%, non-durable
consumer goods by 1.3%, durable consumer goods by 0.7% and intermediate goods by 0.3%, while production of
capital goods rose by 0.3%.” said the monthly comparison in the Eurostat news release.
The worst culprits for falling production were Latvia, Lithuania and Portugal, with production output faltering by 3.3%, 3.1% and 2.8% respectively.
Conversely, success stories included Denmark (+2.8%), Ireland (+2.2%) and the Netherlands (+1.2%).
On-year, Ireland and Denmark have been the marked success stories, with industrial production rising 9.4% and 4.3% respectively.
As a whole, on-year production output across the board has been a story of two halves,
“In the euro area in September 2018, compared with September 2017, production of capital goods rose by 2.5%
and non-durable consumer goods by 1.6%, while production of intermediate goods fell by 0.3%, energy by 1.4%
and durable consumer goods by 2.5%.”
Going forwards, output will be subject to market fragility in the midst of trade tensions, Brexit negotiations and the political and monetary situations within Italy and Germany.