Brasília – Brazil’s National Confederation of Industry (CNI) reported that industrial performance in May was marked by a decline in production, excess inventories, dismissals and idleness at plants. The CNI’s Industrial Survey was released this Tuesday (23rd).
The survey claims the results “expose the persistence of low industry activity and pessimism regarding a short-term improvement in the Brazilian industry’s outlook.”
According to the confederation, the production index scored 41.7 points and employment dropped to 41.4 points last month. The CNI employs a scale from zero to one hundred: the farther the scores are below the 50-point mean, the higher the decline in production and employment.
The index that tracks inventories in relation to usual levels climbed to 52.4 points. The above-50 score indicates that manufacturers are building unwanted inventories. As a consequence, the average use of installed capacity dropped by 1 percentage point in May from April.
The Intention of Investment Index declined to 43 points in May, the lowest since records started being kept in 2013, when the index reached 60.8 points. Investment intentions are the lowest in small businesses (32.9 points) and highest in major industries (51 points).
The Industrial Survey covered 2,389 businesses from June 1st to 12th, being 981 small, 853 medium and 555 large ones.
*Translated by Gabriel Pomerancblum
