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.
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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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