Confidence in industrial production: the data show encouraging signs

At first reading, the Istat data of Italian industrial production for March 2023 (-0.6 percent compared to February and -3.2 percent compared to March last year) could be disappointing. But a cooler assessment of the data and on a quarterly basis (ie more solid than the monthly one because it is based on a longer period) leads to a diametrically opposite conclusion. In fact, in the first quarter of this year, Italian industrial production decreased by only 0.1 percent compared to the last quarter of 2022.