FRANCE DATA: Industrial Production Disappoints; Driven By Transport Manuf.

France Industrial Production again disappointed on both a yearly and monthly basis in July at -2.2% Y/Y (vs -0.9% consensus, -1.7% revised prior) and -0.5% M/M (vs -0.3% consensus, 0.8% prior).

• The weaker than expected reading was largely due to manufacturing production (weighting 82.53% of total industrial production) which fell 0.9% M/M (vs rising 0.9% in June).
• Within manufacturing production, 4 of 5 subcomponents deteriorated, with the biggest downward contribution fgrom manufacturing of transport equipment which fell sharply by 4.9% M/M (vs growth of 3.1% in June) - the weakest reading since January. Note that Insee states "This month, some companies in the "manufacture of other transport equipment" sector were unable to respond on time to the monthly industry survey, the main source for calculating the monthly industrial production index; their responses were estimated". This component carries a weight of around 5% of total industrial production.
• Manufacture of other industrial products (which makes up around 50% of the manufacturing production weighting) fell 0.6% M/M, and coking and refining production fell the most (although weighing less than 2% of total production) by 9.9% (vs a rise of 12.8% in June). Food manufacturing saw continued weakness for the fifth consecutive month printing a fall of 0.3%. The only subcomponent of manufacturing production to rise was manufacture of capital goods which rose 2.0% M/M (vs -1.1% prior).
• Meanwhile there was a positive contribution from 'Extractive industries, energy and water' production, which rose 1.8% M/M - the highest reading since January and the fifth consecutive monthly gain.