Italian Industrial Output Declined in April Amid Euro Crisis

Italian industrial production declined in April as demand for the nation’s manufactured goods slumped at home and abroad amid Europe’s sovereign-debt crisis.

Output dropped 1.9 percent from March, when it rose a revised 0.6 percent, national statistics office Istat said in Rome today. Economists forecast a fall of 0.5 percent, according to the median of 21 estimates in a Bloomberg News survey. Production fell 9.2 percent from a year ago on a workday-adjusted basis.