Industrial output for April encouraging

Industrial output picked up sharply to grow by 8.3% year-on-year in April, with a double-digit rise in manufacturing showing exporters gaining ground on international markets. Output growth rallied from 5.5% in March, and beat a consensus forecast of 5.2% growth, raising some investor concern that scope for interest rate cuts this year might now be limited. But producer price growth came in lower than the market had expected, and analysts still saw the Monetary Policy Council (RPP) ordering another small rate reduction when it meets at the end of May. Producer prices fell 0.4% month-on-month in April after rising 0.9% in March, taking year-on-year PPI inflation down to 2.9%, below forecasts of 3.1%. "The data are better than expected, which shows that exports are on the rise despite an economic slowdown in the EU," said Michał Dybula, analyst at BNP Paribas in Warsaw. (Reuters; Puls Biznesu, pp. 1, 15) M.M.