Brazilian industrial production grew 0.7% from January to February this year. The increase eliminated only part of the 2.2% loss that occurred in the transition from December to January. The data, from the Monthly Industrial Survey, was released today (1st) by the Brazilian Institute of Geography and Statistics (IBGE).
According to the survey, the industry also accumulates highs of 0.4% in the quarter and 2.8% in 12 months. In comparison with February last year, however, there was a drop of 4.3%. The accumulated for the year also has a loss of 5.8%.
The increase from January to February reached 16 of the 26 subsectors surveyed by the IBGE, especially mining and quarrying industries (5.3%) and food products (2.4%).
“The extractive sector had a significant drop in January, because of the greater volume of rains in Minas Gerais that month, which hampered the extraction of iron ore. With the normalization of rains, production was regularized. The food sector had its fourth positive month of growth, accumulating a gain of 14% in the period. In February, the highlights were the production of sugar and meat and poultry, two important groups within the food sector,” said IBGE researcher André Macedo.
Pharmochemical and pharmaceutical products (12.7%), automotive vehicles, trailers and bodies (3.2%), metallurgy (3.3%) and beverages (4.1%) also had important increases.
On the other hand, ten activities had losses from January to February, among them coke, petroleum products and biofuels (-1.8%) and cellulose, paper and paper products (-3.4%), which caused the main impacts in February.
The four major economic categories of industry had growth in the period, with emphasis on capital goods, that is, machinery and equipment used in the productive sector (1.9%).
Intermediate goods, that is, industrialized inputs used in the productive sector, increased by 1.6%. Among consumer goods, there was growth of 1.5% in semi and non-durables and 0.5% in durables.
