According to the report from INSEE, French industrial production increased by 1.6% in January after a 0.1% decline in December. Economists had expected production to grow by only 0.5%. Meanwhile, compared to February 2020 (before the outbreak of the pandemic), industrial production decreased by 3.9%.
INSEE reported that the sharp increase compared to December was due to an increase in production in "other manufacturing" industries (+4.3%), mining, energy, water supply (+0.6%), food and beverage production (+0.3%) and the production of coke and petroleum products (+4.7% after -2.4%). The decrease was recorded in the production of transport equipment (-5.1%), other transport equipment (-4.9%) and in the production of cars, trailers and semi-trailers (-5.4%).
The data showed that the total volume of industrial production for three months (from November to January) decreased by 0.7% per annum.