February 8, 2016

Industrial production in December increased 0.7% year-on-year, which represented a notable slowdown compared to the 5.7% expansion registered in November. December’s reading is the weakest expansion in 13 months. The slowdown mainly reflects that drops in the production of other transport equipment as well as machinery and equipment largely offset increases in the manufacture of motor vehicles, trailers and semi-trailers.



A month-on-month comparison showed that industrial output in December decreased 2.6% in seasonally-adjusted terms, which came in below November’s 1.3% fall. The trend worsened as annual average growth in industrial production moderated from November’s 5.0% to 4.4% in December.

FocusEconomics Consensus Forecast panelists expect industrial output to expand 4.5% in 2016, which is down 0.1 percentage points from last month’s forecast. For 2017, panelists expect industrial output to expand 4.3%.