Portugal Industrial Output Shrinks 4.3%, Retail Sales Growth Improves

(RTTNews) - Portugal's industrial production decreased for the third straight month in January, while retail sales expanded at a slightly faster pace, separate reports from Statistics Portugal showed on Monday.

Industrial production dropped 4.3 percent year-on-year in January, slower than the 4.9 percent fall in December.

Excluding energy, industrial output fell 4.1 percent in January, compared to a 3.2 percent decrease in the prior month.

Among large industrial groups, production in the energy segment showed a decline of 5.4 percent, and the capital goods sector declined sharply by 8.8 percent from last year. Data showed that the intermediate goods segment also showed a fall of 5.7 percent.

On a monthly basis, industrial production rebounded 3.7 percent versus a 4.2 percent fall in December.

The annual retail sales growth improved somewhat to 5.4 percent in January from 5.1 percent a month ago. Food sales growth accelerated to 7.6 percent from 5.6 percent, while those of non-food goods slowed to 3.9 percent from 4.7 percent.

Another piece of information showed that the jobless rate in the country dropped to 6.2 percent in January from 6.4 percent in December. The labor underutilization rate stood at 10.6 percent, which was the lowest value since February 2011.