Industrial production in the Grand Duchy fell by 0.3% in 2012 Q3, accordign to figurtes published by Statec, Luxembourg's national statistics office.
The seasonally adjusted figure reflects the monthly survey data activity and shows that industrial production here stagnated in the third quarter of 2012. However, behind this figure hides a turbulent and uncertain reality. Comparing industry statistics here to those of major trading partners of the Grand Duchy, they reveal the challenges facing Luxembourg companies.
Despite a rebound in steel production in the third quarter of 2012 (compared to the second quarter 2012), the level of production remained significantly lower (-24.4%) compared to the level of the third quarter of 2011. On average, other industries were in decline (-1.9%).
While in Belgium (+4.2%) and Germany (+0.7%), production was up, Luxembourg industry did worse than that of France (-0.1%). For comparison, the industries in the twenty-seven countries of the European Union, like that of the euro area, have increased their production by an average of 0.3% in the third quarter of 2012. The first nine months of the year, compared with the same months of 2011, were challenging.
Multiple problems with Luxembourg industry, both conjunctural and structural, explain the sharp drop in activity (-6.0%). Not only steel production, with -23.7%, continues its backward march, but also other important branches such as rubber production (-22.7%) and glass production (-12.4%), the paper, cardboard and printing industry (-11.8%) or chemical industry (-9.1%) have reduced their production in response to insufficient demand.
However, several smaller branches were able to increase their productive activity. The manufacture of building materials and abrasive products (+8.5%), manufacture of plastic products (+8.3%) and the textile industry (+1.2%) were among those being the most resilient in the face of crisis.
Compared to the second quarter of 2012, construction activity rose 1.1% through the construction of buildings and activities in the field of civil engineering. Compared to the first nine months of 2011, the balance of the construction activity, as reflected in the monthly Statec surveys, activity is still sluggish. Thus, total production fell 6.1%.
