By Antonella Cinelli
ROME, Feb 11 (Reuters) – Italian industrial output fell 0.4% in December compared to the previous month, data showed on Wednesday, but it still rose in the fourth quarter and was up year-on-year, in signs the country’s long manufacturing slump may be easing.
A Reuters survey of 13 analysts had pointed to a 0.5% decrease in December, after a 1.5% month-on-month rise in November.
December’s drop resulted from a decline in output of consumer goods and intermediate products, which outweighed increases for energy and investment goods, national statistics agency ISTAT said.
However, in the fourth quarter, industrial output in the European Union’s third largest economy was up 0.9% compared to the previous three months.
Moreover, on a work day-adjusted, year-on-year basis, industrial output rose 3.2% in December following a 1.4% rise in November, in tentative signs of recovery.
Wednesday’s figures confirm “that the sector has entered a recovery phase after three consecutive years of contraction though this is still very gradual,” said ING’s senior economist Paolo Pizzoli.
In 2025 as a whole, Italy’s industrial output decreased by 0.2%, following much steeper falls of 4% and 2% respectively in 2024 and 2023, ISTAT said.
Despite the recent improvement, Moody’s Analytics economist Andrea Pinelli said Italy’s industrial output is likely to remain weak this year due to geopolitical uncertainty still weighing on manufacturing and exports.
Earlier this month, a purchasing managers’ survey showed Italian manufacturing contracted in January for a second month in a row, albeit at a marginally slower pace than in December.
In the fourth quarter of 2025, Italian gross domestic product grew by 0.3% from the previous three months and was up 0.8% year-on-year, data showed last month, a stronger reading than expected which bolstered the outlook for this year.
Over the whole of 2025, the economy grew by 0.7% from the year earlier, when adjusted for the number of working days, ISTAT’s flash estimate showed on January 30.
It will release on March 2 non-workday-adjusted growth data for last year, comparable with the government’s 0.5% target.
Rome has set a growth target of 0.7% for this year.
(Reporting by Antonella Cinelli, graphic by Stefano Bernabei, editing by Gavin Jones)
Comments