COVID19 Smashes EU Industry Devastating Fall In Output.

The UK industry is taking a big hit as well but forgive my little discrete smile when I say it's not half as bad as the EU's

Latest EU figures show how right the UK was not to join the Euro — and to leave the EU

For the EU, the figures released by its statistics agency yesterday make for very grim reading.

They show by how much the industrial output of the EU plummeted in March — both in comparison to February and also in comparison to March last year. Whichever way the EU tries to spin this, the results are simply shocking.

Conversely, the UK fares far, far better even though the falls are still sobering.

Some of the EU’s falls in production and manufacturing are breathtaking

Below are the results for the Euro Zone compared to the UK, comparing March to February

-26.3% fall in Eurozone production of durable consumer goods (the UK down by only 3.9%)

-15.9% fall in Eurozone production of capital goods (the UK down by only 10.2%)

11.0% fall in Eurozone production of intermediate goods (the UK down by only 3.6%)

Among the Member States for which data are available, the largest decreases in overall industrial production were registered in :

Italy (-28.4%)

Slovakia (-20.3%)

France (-16.4%)

France and Italy — now the no.2 and no3 economies in the EU27 after Brexit being in the worst 3 EU economies for falls in production

Sources: Eurostat (official EU statistics agency) and the UK’s ONS ( the Office for National Statistics)
Note for Remoaner-Rejoiners: In the report yesterday the EU compared March to February, and so I did the same for the UK. Even if you compare March 2020 to March 2019, the EU still comes off far worse. And yes, I showed the Eurozone because the EU statistics agency always headlines on this. The figures are really bad for the entire EU27 as well — I checked.

EU’s overall industrial output is in freefall

Overall industrial production includes a large variety of economic activities, from manufacturing washing machines to quarrying for minerals.

In March 2020 compared with March 2019, overall industrial production decreased by 8.2% in the United Kingdom. This fall is severe, but it is more than a third smaller than the average falls they have suffered in the Eurozone.😁

The figures that many financial observers will be looking out for will come next month when the true effects of the Coronavirus measures on society and business are truly felt.

That said, the figures released by the EU yesterday should surely be a major wake-up call for governments across the EU — and for Ministers in the United Kingdom.

Production numbers are not the most scintillating topic for an article — we know that — but if people aren’t going to work and if economies aren’t producing then they collapse. That is what has been happening.

In amongst all of this, the EU Commission has been floundering. Despite this, Remoaner-Rejoiners continue to try to thwart Brexit on a daily basis. Readers only have to read Hansard to see what has been going on in the Commons and in the Lords. We are all also reading the articles in some of the mainstream media designed to soften up the public for an extension to the Transition Period. It won't work the Government has been adamant that we are leaving the EU in all its entity on 31 December this year.

Sources: EU Commission official statistics agency (Eurostat) | UK Office for National Statistics