The production of the Brazilian industry grew 0.3% from April to May this year. It is the fourth consecutive increase. Despite four months of growth, the industry has not yet managed to replace the 1.9% loss in January.
The sector is also still 1.1% below the pre-pandemic level (February 2020) and 17.6% below the record level reached in May 2011.
The data are from the Monthly Industrial Survey (PIM), released today (5), in Rio de Janeiro, by the Brazilian Institute of Geography and Statistics (IBGE). In comparison with May 2021, the industry grew 0.5%. In the quarterly moving average, the increase is 0.4%.
In the year and 12 months, however, there were drops of 2.6% and 1.9%, respectively.
From April to May, 19 of the 26 surveyed industrial activities had an increase in production, especially machinery and equipment (7.5%), automotive vehicles, trailers and bodies (3.7%), food products (1.3%) , leather, travel articles and footwear (9.4%) and electrical machines, equipment and materials (5.5%).
Decline
Seven activities fell in the period, including mining and quarrying (-5.6%) and other chemical products (-8.0%).
Among the four major economic categories of industry, only intermediate goods, that is, industrialized inputs used in the productive sector, fell from April to May (-1.3%).
Capital goods, that is, machinery and equipment used in the productive sector, registered an increase of 7.4%. Durable consumer goods (3%) and semi and non-durable consumer goods (0.8%) also grew.
