Industrial production slowly recovering

In December 2001 industrial production increased by 5% on November. This is the seasonally corrected figure. November already showed a small increase (2 %) This indicates that production in industry is starting to recover.

Compared to a December 2000 industrial production in December was still 6.2 % lower, which was even more than in November (-5.4 %). This is due mainly to the relatively high production level in December 2000. In the year 2001 as a whole Dutch industry produced 1.8% less than in 2000, according to the latest preliminary figures by Statistics Netherlands.

Industrial production in 2001 lower than in 2000
December was the sixth month in a row in which the industrial production was lower than the year before. Production for the year 2001 as a whole was also lower (-1.8 %). The decrease cannot be attributed to one branch in particular: production was down almost across the board. Only the oil, chemical and rubber industries produced as much in 2001 as they had the year before. In the year 2000 Dutch industry still had a growth rate in production of 4.7 %.

Industrial stock doesn?t seem to decrease anymore
In December the stock of finished products did not seem to decrease any further. The drop in production on a year ago was about the same as the drop in turnover volume. In October and November production fell by more than the turnover volume, which indicated that the stocks were getting smaller.

This was confirmed by the economic survey conducted by Statistics Netherlands. In the period July-October the percentage of industrial entrepreneurs who felt the stock was too big increased from 10 to 13%. In November their share fell slightly to 12 %, and further decreased in December to 10 %.

(source: Statistics Netherlands)

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