Industrial production fell 5.5% in March

Portugal’s Industrial Production suffered a fall of 5.5% after having seen a 1.5% increase in February according to data released by the National Statistics Institute (INE).

Excluding the energy sector, the indicator went from 2.1% in February to a fall of 4.3% in March.

In March manufacturing industries saw a fall of 5% compared to a growth of 2.2% in February.

According to the INE “all large industrial groups suffered negative MoM variations that were worse than in February.

While energy was the “most influential factor” for the variation across the total index (-2%), causing a variation rate of -10.5% (-3.7 in February), the consumer goods group registered the biggest fall going from an increase of 4.4% in February to a fall of 4.6% in March, contributing -1.4%.

As for intermediate and investment goods, these contributed with -1-1% and -1.0% respectively, on the result of variation taxes of -3.3% and -5.4% (3.3% and -3.3% the previous month).

In monthly terms, industrial production saw a variation of -4% in March, after having climbed by 4.7% the previous month.

Regarding the first quarter, the aggregated index fell 2.4% YoY and 0.4% QoQ.