Italy's industrial production rose in July for the second consecutive month, signaling that the country's industrial sector kept its momentum at the beginning of the third quarter. Italian factory output increased 0.8% in July compared with the previous month following an upwardly revised 1.1% rise in June, data from the country's statistics office Istat showed Friday.
The reading beats expectations from economists, who had forecast factory output to decrease 0.1%, according to FactSet. Industrial production was up 7% in July compared with the same month a year earlier and 1.5% above the pre-pandemic level registered in February 2020, the data showed.
Italy's economy, the third largest in the eurozone, expanded 2.7% in the second quarter compared with the previous three-month period on the back of a gradual easing of Covid-19 restrictions. Solid economic growth is expected to have extended to the third quarter, and Istat expects the country's GDP to expand by 4.7% this year as a whole.
