Euro Area and Union: industrial production is always decreasing
The problem of the industrial production crisis is not limited only to Germany or Italy, but extends to the entire EU, and in particular to the entire Euro Area
Industrial production in the Euro Area fell by 0.3% month-on-month in July 2024, aligning with market expectations, following a revised flat performance in June.
Production decreased in several sectors: intermediate goods (-1.3% against 0.6%), capital goods (-1.6% against 1%) and durable consumer goods (-2.8% against 3.8 %, just to clarify cars).
Production growth slowed for energy (0.3% versus 1.7%) , but rebounded for non-durable consumer goods (1.8% versus -2.3% ).
In the following graph you see the decline in production in the Euro Area, and that of the entire union, including countries that do not belong to the Euro Area, demonstrating that the Euro not only has not helped European industry, but has contributed to destroy it:
We see the same picture taking production in the EU as the reference value 100 in 2021
Among the main economies of the Euro Area, Germany recorded the sharpest decline, with a 3% decrease in production, while Italy, Spain and France recorded declines of 0.9%, 0.7% and 0.5%. %, respectively. On an annual basis, industrial production contracted 2.2% in July, following an upwardly revised 4.1% decline in June.
In general, the largest monthly declines were recorded in Malta, Estonia and Romania. The highest increases were recorded in Ireland, Croatia and Belgium. Here is the chart by country.
Now the famous Draghi report has been released, which calls for phenomenal annual investments to relaunch the industry, but, in the end, it gives very little practical advice, beyond a generic "More Europe" and "more decarbonisation", two policies that have turned out to be disastrous.
Allow me to recommend the exact opposite: less Europe, less Euro, more money in citizens' pockets, and let's produce energy at affordable costs with a long-term perspective, and without exciting excessive dependence on anyone. Obviously our advice will not be followed, but it is the right one…
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The article Euro Area and Union: industrial production is always decreasing comes from Economic Scenarios .
This is a machine translation of a post published on Scenari Economici at the URL https://scenarieconomici.it/euro-area-e-unione-la-produzione-industriale-e-sempre-al-ribasso/ on Fri, 13 Sep 2024 13:05:04 +0000.