FRANKFURT (Reuters) – Euro zone industrial production rose as expected in November but not enough to erase earlier losses and new data were unlikely to signal any major turnaround for a sector in its second year of recession, data from Eurostat showed on Wednesday.
Industrial output in the 20 nations sharing the euro rose by 0.2% on the month after a similar rise in October, mostly on higher energy and consumer durable goods production.
But compared to a year earlier, output was down by 1.9% and remained well below the bloc’s pre-pandemic level.
Industry has been in a deep recession as surging energy costs, poor demand from Asia, cheaper competition and the German car sector’s inability to adjust to shifting consumption patterns all weigh on sales.
While monthly production numbers are often choppy, poor order figures, especially from Germany, the bloc’s largest economy, suggest that no meaningful recovery was in sight, even if the sector may be bottoming out.
This slump was big enough to drag overall German growth into negative territory in 2024 for the second year in a row and likely kept overall euro zone growth well below 1%.
Compared to a year earlier, Germany recorded the biggest industrial output drop among the euro zone’s largest countries but France, Italy and Spain all had negative readings.
(Reporting by Balazs Koranyi, Editing by Louise Heavens)
