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Eurozone industrial production down by 0.8 pct in March

Xinhua, May 12, 2016 Adjust font size:

Eurostat figures showed on Thursday that seasonally-adjusted industrial production in the 19-country eurozone fell by 0.8 percent in March on a monthly basis, a sign that producers across Europe are still stuck in reverse gear.

The 0.8-percent fall was more than the no change predicted by economists and came after a 1.2-percent decline in February.

On a yearly basis, eurozone industrial production increased by 0.2 percent, according to the EU statistics agency.

In the wider 28-nation EU, production levels fell 0.5 percent in March.

The statistics agency said the 0.8-percent fall in eurozone was due to production of non-durable consumer goods falling by 1.9 percent, capital goods by 1.1 percent, intermediate goods by 0.8 percent and durable consumer goods by 0.4 percent, while only energy production posted an increase of 2.0 percent.

Among member states, industrial production in Ireland has seen the sharpest contraction of 11.2 percent.

Figures in Germany and French also disappointed with a decline of 1.0 percent and 0.3 percent respectively.

"Oil price gains in recent months support our view that the positive impact of falling energy prices on domestic demand growth is coming to an end. And the boost to external demand from the euro's previous falls has largely faded," said Stephen Brown at Capital Economics. Endit