Rio de Janeiro – Industrial output declined 3.8% from July to August of this year, according to data from the Monthly Survey of Industry released this Tuesday (4) by the Brazilian Institute of Geography and Statistics (IBGE). The drop interrupted the index’s five months of increase in the month-over-month comparison. It was also the sharpest drop since January 2012 (-4.9%).
Industry had negative results also in the quarter moving average (-0.7%), in the comparison with August 2015 (-5.2%), year-to-date (-8.2%) and year-over-year (-9.3%).
In the comparison of August of this year with the previous month, there were declined in three of the four major economic categories: intermediate goods (-4.3%), consumer durables (-9.3%) and consumer semi-durables and non-durables (-0.9%). Capital goods had an increase of 0.4%.
From the 24 industrial activities surveyed, only two went up: pharmachemical and pharmaceuticals (8.3%) and metal products (1%). The leather, travel goods and footwear sectors remained stable.
Twenty one industry activities declined. The ones that had the most impact were foodstuffs (-8%), motor vehicles (-10.4%), extractive industries (-1.8%) and oil and its products and biofuels (-1.9%).
*Translated by Sérgio Kakitani
