The Industrial Production Index for the A.C. of Euskadi fell, according to Eustat data, by 10.2% in March 2002 in comparison to the same month the previous year, the month this year having four working days fewer than the same month last year. Once the effect of the number of working days has been taken into account, permitting the comparison of standardised data, the interannual rate for the month of March returns a positive change of 5.9%. With this data, the accumulated rate for the first quarter of 2002 reflects an increase of 2.1%, on the same period for the previous year.
In March 2002, the most positive interannual changes corresponded to the sectors of "Petroleum Refinery" (26.4%), "Food Industry" (23.2%), "Metallic and Non-metallic Minerals" (22.4%), "Transport material" (15.5%), "Leather and footwear Industry" (14.1%) and "Wood and Timber Industry" (11.6%).
The sectors with negative interannual growth rates were "Textiles and tailoring" (-12.2%), "Water, gas and electric energy" (-3.2%) and "Non-metallic Industry" (-2.6%).
When considering the economic destination of the goods, rates for Consumer Goods (3.2%) and Capital Goods (3.0%) increased more during the first quarter of 2002 than those for Intermediate Goods (0.6%).
The performance of the General Production Index has been fairly similar in the Provinces of Alava (6.9%) and Bizkaia (6.3%) in March, the growth rate in Gipuzkoa (4.8%) being somewhat lower. The highest accumulated growth for the first quarter corresponds to Alava (3.3%), followed by Gipuzkoa (1.9%) and Bizkaia (1.7%).