French Industrial Production Rises 0.3% In January

French industrial production rose by 0.3% in January compared with December with higher output from the automobile sector helping to reverse a decline the previous month, official data showed on March 10. Industrial production contracted by 0.2% in December compared with November, revised data from French statistics office INSEE showed.

In January, production by the manufacturing sector, which excludes output from the energy industry and farming, increased by 0.7% compared with a fall of 0.6% in December.

The automobile industry, which has had fluctuating output in recent months because of temporary layoffs on some production lines in France, reported a 4.8% increase in output in January compared with a decline of 4.5% in December.

Copyright Agence France-Presse, 2006