March 5, 2015

In January, industrial production increased a working-day adjusted 1.8% over the same month of the previous year, which came in well below the 7.9% rise tallied in December and marked the lowest reading in three months. According to Statistics Estonia, January’s mild expansion reflected improvements in the production of electronics, wood, metal products and furniture. Conversely, the food industry, chemicals and motor vehicles recorded contractions compared to the same month of the previous year.



A month-on-month assessment shows that industrial output decreased 1.5% in seasonally- and working-day-adjusted terms in January, which followed the 1.7% drop observed in December. As a result of the slight improvement, the overall trend continued to improve in January, with annual average growth in industrial production rising to 2.5% from December’s 2.2%.

FocusEconomics Consensus Forecast panelists foresee industrial production growing 2.8% in 2015, which is unchanged from the previous month’s projection. In 2016, the panel expects industrial production to increase 3.6%.