Factory output plunges across the Eurozone
EUROZONE industrial production collapsed in October, as the real economy tanked across the debt-stricken currency bloc.
Seasonally-adjusted industrial output was 1.4 per cent down in just a month, the European statistics agency Eurostat said, meaning it was a full 3.6 per cent lower than a year before. Analysts said the data only added to the case that recession in the euro area would get even deeper in the fourth quarter.
Perhaps the gloomiest element of the statistics was the evidence that Eurozone powerhouse Germany was being pulled down with the rest of the beleaguered group. Industrial production in the bloc’s biggest economy sunk 2.4 per cent in just a month, the latest fall in a year that has seen industry produce 3.8 per cent less. And Germany was by no means one of the worst off – Irish industrial output was down 16.2 per cent on the year, Italy saw a 6.2 per cent drop, and Portuguese output slid 3.9 per cent.
This came in tandem with news that Germany and France had slipped into deflation. Germany’s consumer price index edged down 0.1 per cent in November, Destatis said, while official statistical body Insee said French consumer prices crept down 0.2 per cent in the same month.