Eurostat reports that total industrial production (IP) in the EU was +0.3% higher than in December 2024, with the Euro-zone seeing faster growth at +0.8%. Compared to a year earlier (January 2024), total IP declined by -0.2% in the EU and was unchanged in the Euro-zone. Note that, unlike the UK, the Eurostat data is for Industrial Production.
Although manufacturing makes up the bulk of IP, the latter also includes the extraction, energy production and utilities industries. Unfortunately, they don’t provide a breakdown of IP that includes manufacturing that we can compare directly with the UK data noted above.
Taking a slightly longer outlook, despite the improvement in January, total IP in both the EU and the Euro-zone for the latest 3 months (November & December 2024 and January 2025) was -0.2% lower than in the previous period (August, September and October 2024). All of these trends are based on a seasonally and calendar adjusted basis.
The only level of breakdown in the Eurostat bulletin that matches the UK data is the analysis for capital (or investment) goods. Compared to December 2024, output for this sub-sector grew by +0.1% in the EU and by +0.5% in the Euro-zone; the only other sector to grow on this basis was intermediate goods (which was stronger at +1.5% and +1.6% respectively). Looking back over 12 months to January 2024 saw capital goods output decline by -2.8% in the EU and -2.7% for the Euro-zone; on this comparison, this group is the weakest of the sub-sectors of IP in both areas.
Staying with the 12-month comparison, of the 26 EU Member States which have published their data (Italy is missing), 14 saw an increase in total IP, with the other 12 registering a decline. The strongest growth was in Ireland (+10.4%, although this is distorted by the HQ operations of multi-national companies), Lithuania (+9.8%) and Croatia (+7.6%); the largest percentage reductions were in Slovakia (-5.1%), Denmark (-4.4%) and Hungary (-4.0%). However, it is worth noting that, compared to a year ago, output fell in Germany (-1.8%), France (-1.5%) and Spain (-1.0%).
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 (13 March) or requested from MTA.