UK industrial production continued to decline in September

Office for National Statistics said, UK production output fell by 0.3% between August 2019 and September 2019. Economists had expected a 0.2% decrease. Manufacturing provided the largest downward contribution (0.4%), followed by electricity and gas (0.5%).

The 0.4% monthly decrease in manufacturing output was widespread with falls in 8 of the 13 subsectors; the largest downward contribution came from a 5.1% fall in basic pharmaceutical products.

Total production output was flat at 0.0% for Quarter 3 (July to Sept) 2019, compared with Quarter 2 (Apr to June) 2019; manufacturing output was also flat at 0.0%, with falls in mining and quarrying (1.7%) and electricity and gas (0.7%), offset by a rise in water and waste (1.2%). Negative contributions to quarterly growth by eight of the subsectors is almost wholly offset by notable strength from transport equipment (6.2%), mainly because of significant weakness during Quarter 2 2019, rather than notable strength during Quarter 3 2019.

For Quarter 3 2019, production output decreased by 1.4% compared with Quarter 3 2018; led by a fall in manufacturing of 1.4% and supported by falls in mining and quarrying (5.3%) and electricity and gas (1.0%).