Joseph Chiellino
MILAN
However you read it, April's industrial production data is ugly. Although not entirely unexpected. The study centers had announced a negative trend, but perhaps few expected a drop of such dimensions as to set the industry's hands back two and a half years, to November 2009, the worst moment of what has been defined as an "annus horribilis". for the economy.
The seasonally adjusted index decreased by 9.2% compared to April 2011. For 8 months now we have not seen a positive trend sign. On a monthly basis, the drop was 1.9% and the average for the first four months of 2012 already shows a drop of 6.6 percent.
The Istat tables show all the concern that has been guiding and conditioning the behavior of businesses and households for some months now. More than half of the decline in the general index is due to intermediate goods. Those goods, that is, destined for other industries to be transformed into finished products. The performance of capital goods, which in turn are destined for the production of other products, was also heavy. And it could not have been otherwise, since for months the production of consumer goods, especially durable goods, has been falling: -12.3% compared to April 2011 and -11.6% the accumulated drop since the beginning of the year compared to same period 2011. The overall reduction in consumer goods was 7.9%. Also on an annual basis, the decline in the production of intermediate goods was 12.8% while capital goods recorded -6.2 per cent. In comparison with March, only the energy industry recorded a positive figure (+1.9%) which may have been partly influenced by the increase in prices.
The most suffering sectors of activity are the production of household appliances, down by 15.6% per year and 2.4% per month, the production of rubber and plastic articles (-14.7% per year and -5% per month) and chemicals ( -10.3% and -4.8%). The slowdown also affects manufacturing sectors such as that of machine tools which in recent years have better resisted the crisis thanks to a strong export orientation. On the other hand, the production of pharmaceuticals holds steady, recording a very limited reduction in volumes on an annual basis and a small increase compared to March. Still in manufacturing, if we want to look for positive signals, we can look at the monthly +1.3% for textile clothing which, however, accumulated a drop of over 9% in the first four months of the year. In comparison with April 2011, only extractive activities (oil, gas and minerals) show a solid +6.5%.
To such a gloomy scenario – on which only the confederal unions have expressed themselves asking in chorus for a change in industrial policy oriented towards growth and development – Svimez forecasts must be added. In a year of recession for the whole country, it will above all (and once again) be the South that will pay the highest price. In fact, this year the decline in GDP will be on average 1.8% but while in the central-northern regions it will be "only" 1.4%, in the South ar
