Brazilian industry grows 1.1% in March after two consecutive declines

Brazilian industrial production increased by 1.1% in March this year, compared to the previous month. The increase came after two consecutive declines (in January and February) and a month of stability (December 2022). The data are from the Monthly Industrial Survey – Physical Production (PIM-PF), released this Wednesday (10) by the Brazilian Institute of Geography and Statistics (IBGE).

The sector also grew in comparison with March 2022 (0.9%). However, production accumulates a drop of 0.4% in the year and stability in the accumulated 12 months.

Compared to February of this year, industry increased in 16 of the 25 subsectors surveyed, with emphasis on activities such as coke, petroleum products and biofuels (1.7%), machines and equipment (5.1%) and information technology, electronic and optical products (6.7%).

Other relevant influences for the industry’s growth came from pharmochemicals and pharmaceuticals (3.2%), other transport equipment (4.8%), chemical products (0.6%), leather, travel articles and footwear (2 .8%) and non-metallic mineral products (1.2%).

One segment remained stable (various products) and eight decreased, among them apparel and accessories manufacturing (-4.7%), furniture (-4.3%) and metal products (-1%).

Among the four major industrial economic categories, three increased from February to March: capital goods, that is, machinery and equipment used in the productive sector (6.3%), intermediate goods, that is, industrialized inputs used in the productive sector (0.9%) and durable consumer goods (2.5%).

The exception was semi-durable and non-durable consumer goods, which fell by 0.5% in the period.

According to IBGE researcher André Macedo, despite the March hike, it was not enough to recover recent losses. He claims that there are elements in the country’s situation that explain part of the difficulties in the recovery of the Brazilian industrial sector.

“Current issues still remain within our scope of analysis, such as interest rates at higher levels, which make it difficult to access credit, the high rate of default and the higher level of indebtedness on the part of families, as well as the large number of people outside the labor market and the high level of informality”, said the researcher, according to a note released by the IBGE.