Spain’s industrial output plunges again in April

Spanish industrial output plummeted in April, official data showed yesterday, in a fresh sign that recession is tightening its hold on the crisis-hit economy.

Factories, mines and utilities slashed output in April by 8.3 per cent year-on-year after smoothing out seasonal blips, the National Statistics Insitute said.

It was the eighth straight month of yearly decline, grim news for an economy already battered by 24.4 per cent unemployment, a banking crisis and mounting expectations of an international bailout.

The performance of Spanish industry appeared to be deteriorating, with the April decline even steeper than the 7.5 per cent slump recorded in March and the 5.3 per cent drop in February. Output of durable consumer goods such as washing machines, cars or televisions plunged by 16.7 per cent while production of other consumer goods fell 6.7 per cent.

In a potentially worrying sign for future output by Spain, production of industrial and other equipment, for example to manufacture cars, slumped by 14.9 per cent.

Spain’s government and central bank have predicted that the recession will last until at least mid-2012 after the economy shrank 0.3 per cent in the last quarter of 2011 and by the same amount in the first quarter of 2012.