Italian industry crisis: sharp drop in production in November, beyond expectations
Bad news for Italy, in line with what is happening in other European countries. Industrial production in Italy fell 1.5% in November 2023 compared to a 0.2% decline in October and estimates of a 0.2% decline.
It was also the largest contraction since April, as the country's economy is in difficulty due to high interest rates slowing down investment and consumption. Here is the relevant graph
The declines concerned the production of energy goods (-4% vs 1.4%), consumer goods (-1.8% vs 0.3%), intermediate goods (-1.8% vs -0.5% ) and capital goods (-0.2% vs -0.5%). On an annual basis, industrial production fell by 3.1%, marking the 10th consecutive period of negative reading.
As regards the affected industrial sectors, the situation is presented by the following Istat graph
The sector most affected is that of paper and wood production, the latter in severe crisis in Italy also due to the high costs of energy. The textile-leather sector was also very affected and this is a terrible sign for a country that relied heavily on fashion. The decline was also very heavy in the plastic and rubber products sector, which is very sensitive to the trend of energy prices.
However, the oil refining sector, which is rebounding after the 2022-23 crisis, as well as the means of transport and mechanics sectors, are managing to resist.
The data is heavy and would require a response from entrepreneurs, first of all, and then from local administrations and the government. We often talk about sustainability, but the first sustainability to be protected is that of the economy, of the country's ability to support its economy with an adequate industrial system. Now we need to rethink the entire bureaucratic system, from local administrations to central regulations to the interpretation of European ones, for now, to relaunch production activity. Society must change direction and think about its own demographic and economic self-protection, not about the protection of tiny splinters.
We need an industrial policy. Do we have one?
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The article Italian industry crisis: sharp drop in production in November, beyond expectations comes from Economic Scenarios .
This is a machine translation of a post published on Scenari Economici at the URL https://scenarieconomici.it/crisi-industria-italiana-forte-calo-della-produzione-a-novembre-oltre-le-attese/ on Thu, 11 Jan 2024 10:16:14 +0000.