Industrial production in Chile slumped 3.6 percent year-on-year in February of 2019, following a 0.9 percent drop in January. It is the biggest annual fall in industrial output since April of 2017, due to declines in mining (-9.4 percent compared to -4.8 percent in January), namely copper (-7.6 percent) and metalliferous minerals (-49.2 percent), specially iron. Also, some companies stopped their production in February due to climatic factors. Also, manufacturing production slowed sharply (0.8 percent compared to 2.6 percent) while utilities rebounded (0.9 percent compared to 0 percent), mainly due to gas (15.8 percent) and water (2.5 percent). On a monthly basis, industrial output fell 1.4 percent, after a 1 percent decline in January. Industrial Production in Chile averaged 1.86 percent from 1997 until 2019, reaching an all time high of 14.05 percent in May of 2000 and a record low of -11.50 percent in February of 2009.
Industrial Production in Chile is expected to be 2.50 percent by the end of this quarter, according to Trading Economics global macro models and analysts expectations. Looking forward, we estimate Industrial Production in Chile to stand at 2.50 in 12 months time. In the long-term, the Chile Industrial Production is projected to trend around 3.60 percent in 2020, according to our econometric models.