LJUBLJANA (Slovenia), May 11 (SeeNews) – Slovenia's industrial production fell 7.6% on the year in March, closely matching the expectations of analysts at Austria's Erste Group Bank for a drop of 8.3%, Erste said on Monday.
Industrial production thus showed the first impact of the Covid-19 crisis and the negative contribution came from all sectors, with the drop in capital goods production weighing hardest on the overall index performance, Erste said in an instant comment after Slovenia's statistical office, SURS, released the March data earlier on Monday.
Erste noted that while industrial production showed positive developments in January-February, the March figure wrapped up the average performance for the first quarter at a 2.0% annual drop.
"Going forward, we continue to see industrial production outlook being strongly affected by the coronavirus outbreak. Uncertainties regarding external demand developments would remain present, while domestic demand support should lack stronger offsetting potential," the analysts said, adding they expect an overall negative performance of industrial production during 2020.
SURS said that Slovenia's industrial production fell by 10.7% on a monthly comparison basis in terms of value in March, which was the largest month-on-month decline in the index since November 2008, when production fell by 12.0%.
The monthly drop was mostly due to a decrease in manufacturing, SURS said, adding that mining and utilities posted a modest output growth in March.