ROME: Italian industrial output was much weaker than expected in February, data showed on Tuesday, unexpectedly falling for the second month running and casting doubts over near term prospects for the economy.
The 0.5 percent drop in output in February followed a steep 1.8 decline in January and was below all forecasts in a Reuters survey of 22 analysts which had pointed to a rise of 0.8 percent.
Italian industrial output had not posted two consecutive monthly drops since May and June of 2016.
The data follows other recent signs of a cooling economy, with surveys of purchasing managers in the manufacturing and services sectors showing a slowdown in activity in February and March, and business confidence also declining in March.
Nonetheless, in the three months to February, industrial output was still up 1.4 percent from the September-to-November period, national statistics bureau ISTAT reported.
Italian industrial output often shows a correlation with trends in gross domestic product (GDP), which rose 0.3 percent in the final quarter of last year, slowing from a 0.4 percent increase in the third quarter.
Industrial output fell by around a quarter during a steep double dip recession between 2008 and 2014, and has recovered only a small part of that during the last three years.
Gross domestic product increased 1.5 last year and the caretaker government of Prime Minister Paolo Gentiloni forecasts the same growth rate for 2018, leaving Italy in its customary position among the most sluggish economies in the euro zone.
Gentiloni's Democratic Party slumped badly in elections on March 4, and says it will go into opposition when a new government has been formed at the end of an ongoing process of negotiations to assemble a ruling coalition. Industrial output declined in most broad industrial sectors in February, ISTAT said.
Production of consumer goods, investment goods and intermediate goods all fell from the month before, partly offset by a big jump in output of energy products.
On a work-day adjusted year-on-year basis, output in February was up 2.5 percent - the smallest increase since April last year - following a 4.4 percent rise in January, revised up from 4.0 percent reported previously.
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