TheJakartaPost

Please Update your browser

Your browser is out of date, and may not be compatible with our website. A list of the most popular web browsers can be found below.
Just click on the icons to get to the download page.

Italy industrial output tumbles nearly 30% in March

Production fell by 28.4 percent compared to February using seasonally adjusted figures and by 29.3 percent compared to March 2019 adjusting for the different number of working days, Istat said.

(Agence France-Presse)

Rome, Italy

Mon, May 11, 2020 Published on May. 11, 2020 Published on 2020-05-11T15:48:17+07:00

Construction workers stand at a construction site, as Italy begins a staged end to a nationwide lockdown due to the spread of the coronavirus disease (COVID-19), in Catania, Italy May 4, 2020. (REUTERS/Antonio Parrinello)

I

taly's industrial production tumbled nearly 30 percent in March as the country shuttered many businesses to contain the spread of the new coronavirus, the nation's statistics agency said Monday.

Production fell by 28.4 percent compared to February using seasonally adjusted figures and by 29.3 percent compared to March 2019 adjusting for the different number of working days, Istat said.

Italy, home to the eurozone's third-largest economy, has been hard-hit with almost 30,000 deaths due to the virus, with the economy shrinking 4.7 percent in the first quarter compared to a eurozone average of 3.8 percent.

Italy was the first country in Europe to be hit by the pandemic, with the March industrial production figures impacted by a nationwide lockdown imposed from March 10 and all non-essential production being shut down since March 22, essentially paralysing the economy.