Industry output in Eurozone jumped in January, pre-COVID

Industrial production in the eurozone jumped far higher than was expected, according to official estimates released today, in a sign that the bloc was showing signs of an economic recovery before the coronavirus started hitting last month.

Eurostat, the EU's statistics office, said that in January, industry output was up by 2.3% in the 19-country single currency area when China and the US signed an initial deal to ease trade tensions.

The rise was significantly higher than the average 1.4% increase forecast in a Reuters poll, and bounced back from a decline of 1.8% in December.

Italy was the best performing of the major EU economies, jumping 3.7% on the month, before the coronavirus began spreading in February.

Germany posted a rise of 2.7% in production, with French output up by 1.2%.

Factories were ramping up manufacture of intermediate goods, which rose by 3.2% on the month, in a sign that European companies might have been looking to fill the gaps in the supply chain caused by the initial coronavirus outbreak in China. 

Capital goods production rose by 2.6% in January - an indication that optimism among factory managers was driving higher investments.

When compared with the previous year, industrial output was still down however - by 1.9%, but far less than the expectation of a 3.1% decline and an improvement on December's reading of -3.6%.

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