Portugal Industrial Output Recovers; Retail Sales Growth Improves

(RTTNews) - Portugal's industrial production expanded for the first time in three months in May, while retail sales grew at an accelerated pace, separate reports from Statistics Portugal showed on Tuesday.

Industrial production advanced 2.6 percent year-on-year in May reversing a 2.1 percent fall in April.

Among large industrial groups, production in the energy segment showed a sharp growth of 18.0 percent, and the capital goods sector grew by 1.8 percent from last year. Data showed that the intermediate goods segment showed a slight increase of 0.1 percent.

Excluding energy, industrial output fell 0.2 percent in May, compared to a 2.9 percent decrease in the prior month.

On a monthly basis, industrial production climbed 1.9 percent versus a 1.3 percent gain in April.

The annual retail sales growth improved to 4.8 percent in May from 3.0 percent a month ago. Non-food sales growth accelerated to 4.7 percent from 0.8 percent, while that of food goods slowed to 5.0 percent from 6.4 percent.

Another piece of information showed that the jobless rate in the country remained stable at 6.3 percent in May. A year ago, it was 6.4 percent.