According to ISTAT, Italy's national statistics office, in March this year Italian industry increased its turnover by 2.0 percent month on month and by 12.2 percent year on year.
Compared to March 2010, the strongest performances in March this year were for the chemical industry, up 28.2 percent.
In March on month-on-month basis, the seasonally-adjusted turnover index in Italy rose 7.1 percent in the energy sector, 3.2 percent for intermediate goods and 1.6 percent for consumer goods. Among consumer goods, durable goods decreased by 0.9 percent, while the turnover index for non-durable goods increased by 2.1 percent. A decrease of two percent month-on-month was registered for capital goods.
With regard to total orders for Italian industry, in March this year there was a month-on-month increase of 8.1 percent and a year-on-year increase of 21.2 percent.