Industrial output slipped in the eurozone in December as a cold snap crimped activity, data showed, though economists said the outlook was promising amid signs of recovery across much of the region's weaker periphery. Production in the 16 countries that were then using the euro fell 0.1 percent from November, the European Union's statistics office Eurostat said on Monday. Analysts surveyed by Reuters had forecast it would be unchanged.
Growth in Europe's dominant economy Germany, hit by brutal weather in the run-up to Christmas, was zero, while production in both the eurozone's No 2 and 3 economies, France and Italy, expanded 0.3 percent. Solid growth in the fourth quarter compared with the third, aided by three successive months of expansion in capital goods production, offered encouragement over what is one of the key elements of gross domestic product.
Euro zone industrial output rose by 8.0 percent year-on-year in December, marginally worse than the 8.1 percent that analysts polled by Reuters had predicted. But production fell sharply in Greece from a year earlier, with a figure of 5.2 percent, while Spain slipped 0.1 percent. Euro zone production of capital goods, which covers everything from cars to washing machines, rose by 14.8 percent year-on-year.
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