March industrial production down in Germany, up in France

According to the data from Germany’s statistics office Destatis, the country’s industrial production was down by 0.4% on a monthly basis in March following a revised increase of 1.8% in February and beat the estimates of a fall of 0.6%. This was also the first decline in three months. However, the data showed a rise of 1.9% in the country’s output in March on a yearly basis and an increase of 1.4% quarter-on-quarter.

The data indicated that the fall in industrial output in March was due to declines of 2.5% and 1.2% in energy production and the production of capital goods respectively. Construction activity and the production of intermediate goods, meanwhile, posted respective increases of 1.5% and 0.1%.

Unlike the industrial output in Germany, the data from Insee showed that the industrial output in France climbed by 2% in March month-on-month following a fall of 1.7% in February and beat the estimates of a rise of 1%. This was also the fastest increase since November 2016, when the industrial production was up by 2.7%. However, the country’s industrial production was down by 0.5% in March quarter-on-quarter while it increased by 0.4% year-on-year.

The data showed that the rise in output in March was mainly driven by a 2.5% increase in manufacturing after a fall of 0.7% in February. However, the production in construction sector posted a sharp fall of 5.1% after a rise of 5.4% in the previous month.