Eurozone industrial output flat in subdued start to 2022
Growth in industrial production was flat in the Eurozone in January, official data released on Tuesday showed.
According to Eurostat, the European Union’s statistics office, industrial production was 0.0% in January compared with December 2021, when industrial production rose by 1.3%.
Seasonally-adjusted industrial production rose by 0.4% in the wider EU, compared to growth of 1.0% in December.
Year-on-year, production fell 1.3% in the Eurozone and increased 0.4% in the wider bloc in January.
Within individual sectors, the production of non-durable consumer goods sparked 3.1%. All other sectors reported declines, however, with intermediate goods and energy both down 0.3% and capital goods off 2.4%.
Among member states, manufacturing reliant Germany - the bloc’s largest economy - reported growth of 1.3%. In Spain, growth was flat, while it rose 1.6% in France but fell by 3.4% in Italy.
Bert Colijn, senior Eurozone economist at ING, said the outlook for Eurozone industry was starting to weaken.
He said: "Strong growth in Germany and France - in part thanks to improving availability of semiconductors - was cancelled out by a large decline in Italy. Overall the trend in the past months has been positive as production has been rebounding since autumn.
"From here on, things are getting dicey again. The war in Ukraine is causing disruptions of a different nature and for different types of inputs. This is already resulting in new production hiccups for Eurozone industry.
"At the same time, new lockdowns in China, most notably in key manufacturing hub and harbour Shenzhen…are likely to result in further disruptions of the kind we saw in 2021."