Industrial production in the A. C of the Basque Country fell 1.4% in May 2008 compared with the same month of 2007, in homogenous terms of the working calendar, according to Eustat data.

Compared to the previous month, April 2008, industrial production in the Basque Country fell 2.6%, once corrected for seasonal effects.

The balance of the first five months of 2008 closed with a 1% increase in accumulated growth in the Industrial Production Index with respect to the first five months of the previous year. If evolution of the index is analysed, a recovery of industrial activity in this second quarter can be observed (+1.8%) when compared to the data observed from the first quarter (+0.7%).

Graph 1: Inter-annual quarterly growth of the corrected Industrial Production Index of the A.C. of the Basque Country

Source: Eustat

Sector evolution

By sector, and using the classification of the major industrial sectors, the evolution of the May 2008 index with respect to May 2007 declined in all sectors, except Energy which went up by 5.6%. Capital Goods fell 1.3%, Intermediate Goods by 0.6%, and Consumer Goods went down by 9.9% as a result of the fall of Consumer Durable Goods (-17.9%) and Non-Durable Consumer Goods (-6.4%).

Inter-monthly variations in May 2008, compared with April 2008, were negative for all major industrial sectors except for Energy which rose by 0.2%. Capital Goods fell 3.5%, Intermediate Goods by 1.2%, and Consumer Goods went down by 6.3% as a result of the fall of Consumer Durable Goods (-13.4%) and Non-Durable Consumer Goods (-3.3%).

Evolution by province

Inter-annual evolutions of the Industrial Production Index were negative in all three provinces: Álava and Bizkaia fell 2% in both cases in Gipuzkoa went down 0.5%.

Inter-monthly evolution, May 2008 compared with April 2008, was negative in all three provinces, dropping 3.6% in Álava, 2.7% in Gipuzkoa and by 1.9% in Bizkaia in this same period.

Table 1: MAY 2008. Variation rates (%) of the Industrial Production Index of the A.C. of the Basque Country.

(1) Inter-annual variation rate of the accumulated period from January until the last month of year t compared with the same period of year t-1

Source: Eustat