According to the report from the National Institute of Statistics (ISTAT), industrial production fell by 1.9% in April, recording the sharpest decline since September 2022, and accelerating compared to March (-0.6%). Economists had expected an increase of 0.1%. The change of the average of the last three months with respect to the previous three months was -1.3%.
In annual terms, industrial production fell by 7.2% in April (the strongest decline since July 2020) after a decline of 3.2% in March.
ISTAT said that compared with March, the production of intermediate goods decreased by 2.6%, and capital goods fell by 2.1%. The production of consumer goods (-0.4%) and energy (-0.3%) also decreased. Meanwhile, the decline in annual terms was due to a reduction in energy production (-12.6%), intermediate goods (-11.0%) and consumer goods (-7.3%) and capital goods (-0.2%).