ROME: Italian industrial output dropped a much steeper than expected 0.9 percent in September, data showed on Monday, increasing the likelihood of yet another economic contraction in the third quarter.
National statistics institute ISTAT marginally lowered August's data to a rise of 0.2 percent from 0.3 percent, and over the whole of the third quarter output was down 1.1 percent from the previous three months.
That followed a 0.5 percent decline in the second quarter and was the steepest drop since the fourth quarter of 2012.
September's 0.9 percent monthly output fall compared with a median forecast of a 0.2 percent fall in a Reuters' poll of 12 analysts.
Output was weak across the board, with consumer goods, investment goods, intermediate goods and energy products all posting monthly declines.
Industrial output normally shows a strong correlation with gross domestic product (GDP) in Italy and today's data suggests the economy is likely to fall back into a technical recession when third quarter GDP data is issued on Friday.
In the second quarter GDP dropped 0.2 percent, following a flat reading in the first quarter. The Italian economy, the most chronically sluggish in the euro zone for more than a decade, has not posted a single quarter of growth in the last three years.
ISTAT reported that on a work-day adjusted year-on-year basis, output in September was down 2.9 percent, following an unrevised 0.7 percent drop in August.
Prime Minister Matteo Renzi's coalition government in September forecast that the economy would contract by 0.3 percent this year, following GDP falls of 1.9 percent in 2013 and 2.3 percent in 2012.
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