Italian Industrial Production Rebounds In December

Industrial production in Italy rose by 1.2% in December 2005 from the November figure, an index published by Italian statistics agency ISTAT showed on Feb.13. The figure for December, corrected for seasonal variations, showed that production gathered pace over the month after rising by just 0.1% in November compared with October. The rise was also higher than consensus among analysts, who had expected growth of 0.5%.

A comparison over 12 months showed that production was 3.5% higher in December 2005 than the same month of 2004 after adjustments for differences in the number of working days in the two periods.

Over 2005 as a whole, industrial production fell 1.8% compared with 2004. When adjusted for differences in the number of working days, the fall in output measured 0.8%.

In 2005, production of consumer goods fell 2.4% compared with 2004 after adjustments for differences in the number of working days. On the same basis of comparison, production of intermediate goods fell 1.1%, while production of capital goods fell 1.5%.

Copyright Agence France-Presse, 2006