Eurozone industrial production rebounded at the fastest pace in more than six years, signaling that the manufacturing sector weathered the global slowdown at the start of the year.
Industrial production grew 2.1 percent month-on-month, partly reversing a revised 0.5 percent fall in December, data from Eurostat revealed Monday.
Production growth was the fastest since September 2009, when output climbed 2.3 percent. Economists had forecast a 1.7 percent rise for January after the initially estimated 1 percent decrease.
On a yearly basis, industrial output expanded 2.8 percent, following a revised 0.1 percent drop in the previous month. The pace of growth was faster than an expected 1.6 percent.
Jack Allen, a European economist at Capital Economics, said January's strong rise in euro-zone industrial production was probably just a blip.
Survey evidence suggests that the sector remains too weak to prevent the region's economic recovery from slowing this year, Allen noted.
While the marked jump in Eurozone industrial production in January is undoubtedly good news for first-quarter growth prospects, it needs to be borne in mind that output can be highly volatile from month to month, IHS Global Insight Economist Howard Archer said.
Consequently, there is a very real possibility that February will see a marked relapse, he added.
Production of non-durable consumer goods logged the biggest growth of 7.3 percent. Capital goods and durable consumer goods grew 4.6 percent and 3.2 percent, respectively. Intermediate goods output gained 1.9 percent.
On the other hand, energy production decreased 3.7 percent in January.
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