Production costs for Italy’s metals and metal products sector saw only a very slight increase in December. According to the information from the Italian National Statistics Institute (Istat), the production cost index in December rose to 131.1 points, up from 130 points in November. Compared to December 2005, there was a 13.4 percent increase in production costs in the metals and metal products sector in December 2006. The year on year increase in 2006 in the sector’s production costs reached 11.7 percent. Looking at Italian industry as a whole, production costs in December 2006 saw a 0.2 percent rise from November 2006, and an increase of 5.2 percent compared to December 2005.