European Industrial Production, June 2023: Following the UK manufacturing output data which we reported last week, Eurostat has published the European figures, although they use industrial production and don’t provide directly comparable data for the manufacturing sector. Another complication is that their data is monthly with no easy way of determining the quarterly figures from the press release; it is all seasonally adjusted.
Total industrial production (IP) in June was +0.4% higher than in May for the EU and up by +0.5% in the Euro-zone; despite this, output was -1.2% lower than in June 2022 for both areas but is an improvement on the May figures which have been revised down to -2.1% for the EU and -2.5% for the Euro-zone.
In the month-on-month comparisons, the capital goods sector comes out in the middle of the range with output falling by -0.7% in both the EU and the Euro-zone. However, looking back 12 months to June 2022, this was the best performing sector with growth of +4.8% in the EU and +4.4% in the Euro-zone.
Staying with the 12-month comparison, among the 26 Member States who have published the data (Cyprus is always a month behind), total industrial production increased in only 7 and fell in 19. The most significant reductions were in Estonia (-12.7%), Bulgaria (-9.3%) and Belgium (-7.6%), with Denmark (+12.3%) and Ireland (+8.3%) having the strongest growth. Among the largest EU countries, output fell in Spain (-2.8%), Germany (-1.4%) and Italy (-0.8%) and was broadly flat in France (+0.2%).
You can get the full details from the Eurostat News Release which can be downloaded from their website at https://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/news/euro-indicators (16 August) or requested from MTA.
European GDP, 2nd Quarter 2023: Eurostat has also updated its’ preliminary data for GDP, although there were no revisions to the trends of no change compared to the previous quarter for the EU and growth of +0.3% for the Euro-zone. The comparisons with a year earlier were also unchanged, with EU GDP growing by +0.5% and the Euro-zone expending by +0.6%.
With the EU just having avoided a recession – GDP contracted by -0.1% in Q4-22 but was flat in Q1-23 – only three countries are in that position with GDP falling in both the 1st and 2nd quarters of this year. Of these, Estonia and Hungary have seen their economies contract in all of the four most recent quarters, while the Netherlands had some growth in Q4-22 to interrupt a similar pattern.
Germany and Lithuania both had recessions across Q4-22 and Q1-23 which have been brought to an end in the latest period; although there was strong growth in Q2 for Lithuania, the recession in Germany was only ended by a ”no change” outcome for the latest period which raises the risk of the downturn being continued if the data is revised.
You can get the full details from the Eurostat News Release which can be downloaded from their website at https://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/news/euro-indicators (16 August) or requested from MTA.