Cars and plants drive industrial production: +0.7 % in the month, +1.5 % per year

In March, for example, there was the first upward shift in producer prices, which responded in a timely manner to the start of the US-Israeli war in Iran, soaring especially in the energy component. The benchmark index thus rose to its highest level since early 2023.

Thus, according to ISTAT data, producer prices in industry increased by 4.4% on a monthly basis and 4.2% on an annual basis (it was -2.7% in February).While in general extra-EU exports grew by more than four points, the effect of the Hormuz crisis is an almost halving in relation to the Gulf area, in absolute value a drop of 800 million that penalises specific sectors, such as valves for the Oil & Gas sector.

Other lacklustre data are those related to confidence (April), which were on average downwards, with the consumer index falling to 90.8, the lowest figure in three years, since January 2023.

Among consumers, there was a general worsening of opinions, especially those on the country's economic situation: the economic climate fell from 88.1 to 82.7, the future climate fell from 85.3 to 82.5, the personal climate fell from 94.2 to 93.8 and the current climate fell from 98.0 to 96.9. In particular, there was a sharp step backwards on expectations in relation to the economic situation in Italia, where the balance between pessimists and optimists worsened, with the former prevailing by a wide margin (balance from -70 to -84) with the worst figure since Covid, March 2020.

With reference to businesses, confidence dropped to 95.2, the lowest figure since October 2025 (it was at 94.4).

The picture was also bleak across the border, particularly in Germany, where inflation was close to 3%, the highest in over two years. While it is true that car production is holding up (+3% in March, to 400,000 units), the decline elsewhere, e.g. in machinery, is dampening industrial production in Berlin in general, down 0.7% in the month, 2.8% year-on-year.

In detail

According to the latest Istat data, the seasonally adjusted index of industrial production increased by 0.7 per cent in March compared to February. In the average of the first quarter, the production level decreased by 0.2 per cent compared to the previous three months.

The seasonally adjusted index increased on a monthly basis for capital goods (+2.1%) and intermediate goods (+0.3%), while decreases were observed for consumer goods (-0.4%) and energy (-1.2%).

Net of calendar effects, in March the general index increased in trend terms by 1.5% (there were 22 calendar working days compared to 21 in March 2025). Capital goods grew markedly (+5.8%) and intermediate goods grew less strongly (+0.5%); negative changes were instead observed for consumer goods (-1.9%) and energy (-3.1%).

The sectors of economic activity registering the highest tendential increases are the manufacture of transport equipment (+11.2%), mining and quarrying (+6.7%) and the manufacture of computers, electronics and optical products (+6.1%). The largest declines were in the manufacture of chemicals (-7.8%), electricity, gas, steam and air supply (-4.0%) and other manufacturing, repair and installation of machinery and equipment (-2.4%).