São Paulo – The Brazilian Industry’s Confidence Index (ICI), measured by the Brazilian Economics Institute (Ibre) of the Getúlio Vargas Foundation (FGV), has reached its highest score in the last 12 months, with growth of 3.6% from August to September 2009, having gone from 105.7 to 109.5 points. This is the ninth back-to-back increase, but the index is still lower than that of September 2008 (115 points), when the international financial crisis worsened.
The survey also points to an improvement in both the expectations regarding the future of the economy and the present moment. The Current Situation Index (ISA) rose 2% and totalled 109.5 points. The Expectations Index (UE) went from 104 to 109.4 points, growth of 5.2%.
According to the FGV, the share of companies that declared to have insufficient inventories went from 4.6% to 5%, whereas the share of those that declared to have surplus inventory decreased from 6.5% to 4.5%.
Out of 1,125 companies interviewed for the survey, the majority (52.1%) believes that sales should rise over the next six months, and only 9.3% predict a worsening of business from September this year to February 2010. As of August, 46.2% were optimistic and 17.2% were pessimistic.
*Translated by Gabriel Pomerancblum
