With a slowing trend at the end of the year, lIndustrial production and retail trade sales ended 2022 with increases double digits compared to 2021.
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According to the report delivered yesterday by Dane, manufacturing activity grew 10.7%while real sales increased 10.1% and employed personnel registered a variation of 4.3%.
Of the 39 industrial activities represented by the survey, 5 subsectors had negative variations: Basic industries of precious and non-ferrous metals (-10.1%), Coffee threshing (-8.9%), Leather tanning and retanning, fur retanning and dyeing (-8.4%), Manufacture of substances basic chemicals and their products (-3.4%), and Manufacture of sugar and brown sugar (-1.7%)
In December, compared to the same month in 2021, manufacturing activity had a variation of 0.5%. In addition, real sales reached 0.8% and employed personnel reached 2.3%.
In the case of retail trade, sales increased 10.2% compared to 2021 and employed personnel grew 3.3%.
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For the sector, the December result was worrisome, since despite the fact that by tradition it is dynamic, it stood at -1.8% compared to the same month in 2021.
The president of Fenalco, Jaime Alberto Cabal, said that the accumulated data as of December 2022 shows the leading role of the sector growing at 10.8, contributing to the growth of the Colombian economy.
In contrast, Cabal highlighted the slowdown in activity and stressed that the government’s decision to cancel the Day without VAT influenced the result.
For María Claudia Lacouture, president of Aliadas, the results of industry and commerce “show less dynamism, with a demand hit by the increase in interest and high inflation, which suffers the pocket of consumers”. Added to the above, he said, is the uncertainty generated by the reforms and the permanent announcements of the National Government, which affect the business climate, slow down investment and job creation.
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To generate more growth, he raised a private public work where agreements are reached to stop the rises in interest rates and reduce the cost of credit; an analysis of the productive chains, especially of the agricultural sector, that allows to manage the different costs of the same and thus seek to reduce inflation. In addition, he stressed the importance of sending messages of confidence to the business sector so that they can develop their investments.
Regarding the performance of the plastics industry, Daniel Mitchell, from Acoplásticos, said that “in the last two years, the sector grew, on average, at an average annual rate of almost 15% and rubber around 19%, which which shows the strong recovery and the very good dynamics of the markets”.
He said that in November and December 2022, when compared to quite high sales levels of the previous year, the sector’s dynamics register a slight slowdown. However, the preliminary results they have for January 2023 record, once again, a good rebound in the sector.
In her turn, Rosmery Quintero, who leads Acopi, the union of small and medium-sized companies, called attention to the contraction of trade in December.
“When analyzing these figures in the business segment of MiPymes through the Performance Survey for the fourth quarter of 2022, we can see that 31.7% of the entrepreneurs surveyed stated that their sales decreased compared to the previous quarter.”, which is aligned with the official data.
About the industry, the leader stressed that it is at pre-pandemic levels. “From Acopi we consider that both activities have shown improvement; However, in terms of the number of employed people, despite the fact that there was growth between April 2021 and August 2022, it has begun to slow down. Due to the above, it is important to implement policies and / or mechanisms aimed at these two great activities, ”he said.
CONSTANCE GOMEZ GUASCA
Portfolio Journalist
