Industrial production in the European Union (EU-28) dropped in August by 1.4 per cent month-on-month, according to the data published yesterday by Eurostat.

 

Among member states, the steepest industrial production drops were registered by Hungary (-5.8 per cent), Germany (-4.3 per cent), Croatia (-4.1 per cent), Czech Republic (-3.6 per cent), Lithuania (-3.5 per cent) and Romania (-2.7 per cent).

 

In the Euro Area industrial production registered a contraction of 1.8 per cent, higher than expected. The analysts interviewed by Reuters were expecting a decline of 1.6 per cent. The main reason was a 4.8 per cent drop in the production of hard goods, a sign of lower investments in the Euro Area.

 

Year-on-year, industrial production dropped by 0.8 per cent in the European Union and by 1.9 per cent in the Euro Area in August. In this case however Romania is among the member states that registered production growth (+1.9 per cent).

 

In the other new EU members the situation is worse. Thus, in Poland year-on-year industrial production grew by 0.9 per cent in August, but it dropped in Bulgaria (-1.9 per cent), the Czech Republic (-2.8 per cent), Croatia (-4.7 per cent) and Lithuania (-4.9 per cent). (source: nineoclock.ro)