Italian industrial output rose 1.0% month-on-month in June, in line with expectations, following a 1.6% drop in May, data showed on Friday.
June’s data matched the median forecast in a Reuters survey of 16 analysts and suggests the economic recovery from last year’s coronavirus-induced recession remains on track, despite May’s hiccup.
June marked the sixth increase in industrial output out of the last seven months reported.
May’s data was revised down marginally from an originally reported -1.5%.
On a work-day adjusted year-on-year basis, output was up 13.9% in June, following an unrevised 21.1% increase in May.
In the second quarter overall, industrial output in the euro zone’s third largest economy was up 1.0% compared with the January-to-March period, ISTAT said. That followed a first quarter rise of 1.3%.
June saw month-on-month rises in all the broad product groups of consumer goods, investment goods, intermediate goods and energy products, ISTAT said.
The Italian economy, hobbled by the coronavirus, contracted by 8.9% last year, the steepest fall since World War Two. .
The second quarter of this year saw a strong 2.7% quarter-on-quarter rise in gross domestic product, preliminary data showed last week, following a 0.2% gain in the first quarter.
For this year as a whole, Mario Draghi’s government officially forecasts a GDP rebound of 4.5%, but recent data has been positive and Draghi said on Thursday that growth “well above 5%” now looks likely.
