According to data provided by EUSTAT, the Industrial Production Index for the A.C. of Euskadi fell by 2.8% in the month of June 2002, in comparison to the same period for the previous year. The sharp falls in petroleum refinery (-24.5%) and to a lesser extent in machinery (-9.3%) had a considerable influence on the Industrial Production Index in June. With this data, the accumulated rate of the first six months of the year registered a decrease of 0.5% on the same period for the previous year, once adjusted for the number of working days.

In June 2002, the most positive inter-annual variations were in the sectors of "Metallic and non-metallic minerals" (28.2%), "Wood Industry" (7.7%), "Paper edition and graphics (6.9%), "Transport Materials" (6.2%), "Textile and tailoring (4.5%) and "Chemical Industry" (4.0%),

Those sectors which returned particularly negative inter-annual rates included the aforementioned "Petrol Refinery" (-24.5%) and "Machinery" (-9.3%). Also down on the previous year were "Leather and footwear industry" (-9.3%), "Metallurgy and metallic articles" (-5.9%) and "Food Industry" (-5.6%) among others.

When the economic destination of goods is taken into account, Capital Goods fall, albeit less sharply, (-5.6%), followed by Consumer Goods (-2.6%) and to a lesser extent Intermediate Goods (-0.4%).

In the half year balance the Consumer Goods index increased by 2.6% and the indices for Capital Goods and Intermediate Goods decreased by (-1.3%) and (-0.5%) respectively.

The interannual decrease in the Industrial Production General lndex in June affected the three provinces to differing extents: Alava (-1.7%), Gipuzkoa (-2.3%) and Bizkaia (-3.8%).

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