Industrial production in EU sees largest fall in Ireland 

Ireland has experienced the largest reduction in industrial production when compared to other European Union countries, new data shows.

Figures for December 2018 show that industrial output fell by 19.8% when compared to December 2017.

Additionally, out of the 28 member states, the biggest monthly drop in production was also registered here, with Ireland seeing a 13.4% decrease in December when compared to November.

The information was released today by Eurostat, the EU's statistical office.

In the EU, industrial production was down by 0.5% in December compared to the previous month, while this fell to 0.9% in the eurozone.

When comparing the figures over 12 months, there was an increase in average industrial production of 1.3% in the EU and 1.1% in the eurozone area.

The decreases in the EU were seen in the production of capital goods, like machinery, by 5.5%, as well as falls across the board in the production of durable consumer goods, for example cars, energy, intermediate goods and non-durable consumer goods, such as food.

Across the 28 countries, the biggest annual decreases were seen in Ireland (19.8%), Spain (6.7%) and Croatia (6.6%).

The highest increases were registered in Denmark (14.3%), Hungary (5.8%) and Estonia (5.7%).

When comparing December 2018 with the previous month, the largest decreases in industrial production were registered in Ireland (13.4%), Malta (5.2%) and the Netherlands (3.2%).

The highest increases were observed in Denmark (11.6%), Luxembourg (3.5%) and Latvia (3.3%).

In Ireland, figures provided by the Central Statistics Office (CSO) show that production for manufacturing industries was 14.2% lower in December than in November.

Industrial production for the three months of October 2018 to December 2018 was 8.2% lower than in the preceding three month period, the CSO found.

Production has fallen each year in December, according to Eurostat data.

In December 2017, production decreased by 0.5% when compared to the 12 months previous, while in December 2016 there was a 1.6% annual reduction.