ROME (Reuters) – Italian industrial output fell more than expected in September compared to the previous month and was negative in the third quarter, national statistics bureau ISTAT said on Friday.
The numbers follow weak gross domestic product data that showed stagnation in the third quarter, leaving little hope for a 1% full-year growth rate as officially forecast by the government.
Industrial production fell 0.4% month-on-month after flat August data and below a Reuters survey of 15 analysts that pointed to a 0.2% monthly decrease.
August’s data was revised down from an originally reported rise of 0.1%.
On a workday adjusted year-on-year basis, industrial output in the euro zone’s third largest economy was down 4.0% in September, the 20th consecutive annual decline, ISTAT said.
In the three months to September output was down 0.6% compared with the April-June period.
Earlier this week, a survey showed that Italian manufacturing activity in October contracted for a seventh month running and at a faster pace than the month before, amid persisting declines in output and new orders.
Italy’s Economy minister Giancarlo Giorgetti on Thursday said domestic forecasting models suggested GDP should return to expansion in the final quarter of the year.
According to ISTAT, the so-called “acquired growth” at the end of the third quarter stood at 0.4%. This means that if there were to be zero quarter-on-quarter growth in the final three months, over the whole of 2024 GDP would increase by 0.4% from the previous year.
(Reporting by Antonella Cinelli, editing by Christina Fincher, graphic by Stefano Bernabei)
