Omar Nasser, from Fiep*
Curitiba – The economic performance of southern Brazil was prominent when compared to other Brazilian regions between the end of the third and beginning of the fourth quarter of 2007. This statement was made by the Economic Policy director at the Brazilian Central Bank (BC), Mário Mesquita, and is based on the figures of the BC Regional Bulletin, disclosed on Monday (28) in the city of Curitiba, capital of the southern Brazilian state of Paraná. He specially pointed out the good performance of the economy of Paraná. "Foreign trade has been growing more intensely in this region of the country and also in Paraná," he pointed out.
The positive performance of the southern economies and of Paraná, according to Mesquita, is the result of the combination of lower inflation than the national average, credit, foreign trade and job generation on the rise. For the September/November period, for example, the Broad Consumer Price Index (IPCA) in Curitiba was 0.55%. In Belém (the capital of the northern Brazilian state of Pará), the figure was 1.58%, in Salvador (Bahia, in the northeast), it was 0.77%, in the Midwest, 1.43%, in Belo Horizonte (capital of the southeastern state of Minas Gerais), 0.80% and in the Metropolitan Region of São Paulo, also SE, it was 0.74%.
"The southern region has been expanding rapidly," said the Economic Policy director at the BC. In terms of formal job generation, it only lost to the Southeast. Whereas the South generated 133,300 work posts in the three-month period ending in November 2007, the Southeast opened 272,000 new work posts in the same period. In the state of Paraná, the number of openings was 36,300, i.e., around 1/3 of all the positions opened in the south of the country.
Industry and trade
The BC study is promoted each quarter in one capital in the country. According to the document, retail trade in the South posted growth of 8% in the accumulated result for the first eight months of 2007, when compared to the same period in 2006. Regarding industrial production, expansion was 1.1% in the three-month period ending in October, as against the previous three months. In the accumulated result for the year of 2007, also up to October, the growth was 7.2% in industrial production when compared to the same period in 2006.
In Paraná, retail trade posted growth of 7.2% in the first eight months of last year when compared to the same period in 2006. Industrial production in the state presented growth of 1.9% in the three-month period ending in October, as against the previous three months. Between January and October last year, expansion was 7.6% when compared to the performance of the first eight months of 2006.
With regard to exports of the Southern region, the accumulated result for January to November last year presented an increase of 25.9% over the corresponding period in 2006. Imports, in turn, posted growth of 36.5%, boosted mainly by the depreciation of the dollar against the Brazilian real. For comparative purposes, in the Southeast, expansion in the period was 14% and 30.7%, respectively.
*Federation of Industries of the State of Paraná. Translated by Mark Ament
