Industrial production rebuts expectations: growth of 1.6% in April

MILAN – The Istat data overturns the pessimism of Confindustria and analysts and signal an increase in industrial production for April. According to the Institute of Statistics, industrial production rose by 1.6% in April 2022 compared to March: Istat recorded “the third consecutive month of economic growth of the index”. Unicredit, in its note this morning, expected a drop of 2.5%.

Compared to the previous year, the index increased by 4.2% (net of calendar effects) with more sustained growth in consumer goods (+ 11.3%) and in energy (+ 4.7%) . The most dynamic sectors are textiles, clothing, leather and accessories (+ 23.4%), pharmaceutical products (+ 19.8%), coke and refined petroleum products (+ 9.4%). Only metallurgy and manufacturing of metal products (-2.3%), chemical products (-1.5%) and means of transport (-0.7%) are down.

The monthly seasonally adjusted index grows on a cyclical basis for intermediate goods (+ 2.0%), consumer goods (+ 1.6%) and energy (+ 1.4%), while capital goods are stable .

In the trend data corrected for calendar effects, in April 2022 “significant increases characterize consumer goods (+ 11.3% compared to April 2021) and energy (+ 4.7%); the growth for intermediate goods (+ 2.6%) and capital goods (+ 0.7%) “. Overall, in the first four months of the year, there is an increase of 2.1% compared to the previous year.

Istat also revised some data relating to March 2022 which led to a growth of the general index of industrial production of 0.2% compared to the previous month (from the 0% indicated previously) and an increase of 3.2% on annual basis (it was + 3%).

Downstream of the data, the Minister of the Public Administration, Renato Brunetta, in a note underlines that “today’s Istat data on industrial production once again disavows the negative forecasts of analysts. Industrial production for the month of April is estimated, in fact, to increase by + 1.6% compared to March, completely overturning the negative forecasts of analysts, which estimated a -1.1%. On an annual basis, ie compared to April 2021, the growth it is even + 4.2% against an estimate of -0.2%. In April, moreover, the third consecutive month of economic growth of the index was recorded, driven by all the main sectors of activity with the exception of capital goods ” .

The National Consumers Union also speaks of “positive data”: “Obviously, the high bills of companies did not weigh on their production. And there are only two possible reasons. The first is that companies have passed on the higher energy costs to final consumers in the form of price increases. The second is that government aid to businesses has had its effect. Both are true, “said the UNC president, Massimiliano Dona.