Italy December industry output rises for second month running, but Q4 marginally down

ROME: Italian industrial output was stronger than expected in December, rising 0.4 percent after a 0.3 percent gain in November to post two consecutive monthly rises for the first time this year, data showed on Tuesday.

The data is an encouraging sign for Italy's recession bound economy, even though output in the fourth quarter was still down a marginal 0.1 percent compared with the previous three months, following a steep 0.8 percent drop in the third quarter.

The median forecast of a Reuters' poll of analysts had projected a flat monthly reading in December. The 0.4 percent rise was above all the forecasts of the 22 analysts surveyed.

Industrial output shows a strong correlation with gross domestic product (GDP) in Italy, which is stuck in its third recession in the last six years. GDP has not posted a single quarter of growth since the middle of 2011.

Fourth quarter GDP data will be issued by national statistics institute ISTAT on Friday.

Over the whole of 2014 industrial output was down 0.8 percent compared with the year before, marking the third consecutive annual decline. Industrial output has fallen by almost a quarter compared with its 2008 peak before the global financial crisis marked the start of Italy's long economic slump.

In December, output of consumer goods fell 0.9 percent from the month before, outweighed by a strong 3.0 percent increase in investment goods and smaller rises of 0.3 percent for intermediate goods and 0.4 percent for energy products.

ISTAT reported that on a work-day adjusted year-on-year basis, output in December was up 0.1 percent, the first increase since June, following a 1.9 percent fall in November.