Industrial production up 1.3pc

5 December 2003

MADRID – Industrial production increased by 1.3 percent over the past ten months, according to figures released Friday.

The National Institute of Statistics (INE) said the Industrial Production Index increased 0.6% in October 2003 compared with last year’s figure.

This meant there was an accumulated rise of 1.3percent for the last ten months – compared with the same period in 2002.

However, the production of consumer goods went down by 1.2 percent . Figures for production of consumer durables fell 2.3 percent and perishables by 1 percent.

The industries with the largest growth rates from January to October were petroleum refining (10.7 percent ); medical and optical equipment and watchmaking (6.3 percent); chemical (5.3 percent) and non-energetic mineral mining (4.7 percent).

Industrial production of office and IT equipment fell by 39.4 percent and electronic equipment by 12.2 percent.

In Spain’s so-called ‘autonomous communities’, where there are regional governments, industrial production increased sharply in Navarra (8.5 percent), Aragón (7.8 percent) and Murcia (6.7 percent), and fell significantly in Extremadura (15.2 percent) and Castilla-La Mancha (9.8 percent).

Subject: Spanish news