18/03/2005 (Agence Europe) - Euro zone industrial production was up 0.5% in January 2005 compared to December 2004 when it had already shown progress. In the EU25, the rise was 0.4% in January compared to 0.2% in December. At an annual rate, production increased by 2.2% in the euro zone and 1.7% in the EU25. The energy sector was down 0.9% in the euro zone and 1.3% in the EU25. Taking each country separately, the strong monthly increases concerned Ireland (+4.5%), Poland (+3.4%), Germany (3.2%) and the Czech Republic (+1.8%), in particular, whereas Portugal recorded the largest fall (-5%) followed by Finland (-4.1%) and Latvia (-2.6%). Compared to January 2004, the data for January 2005 show that, in countries for which information is available, there is a rise in annual industrial production of eleven countries and a fall in eight. Lithuania (+7.8%) showed the most significant rise, whereas the most marked fall was recorded in Denmark (-1.6%).