Industrial production grows 0.9% in March, says IBGE

Brazilian industrial production grew 0.9% in March this year, compared to February. In the previous month, the industry had grown 0.1%. Growth in two months was not enough to recover the 1.1% loss in the sector in January.

The Monthly Industrial Production (PIM) data was released this Friday (3) by the Brazilian Institute of Geography and Statistics (IBGE). The research shows that, compared to March 2023, a drop of 2.8% was recorded. Industrial production accumulates increases of 1.9% in the year and 0.7% in the 12-month period.

The industry is 0.4% above the pre-pandemic level (February 2020) but 16.3% below the highest point in the historical series, observed in May 2011.

Despite the positive result from February to March, only five of the 25 industrial activities showed an increase in the period, with emphasis on the food sector, which grew 1% in the month, mainly due to meat and sugar production.

In addition, only the segments of textile products (with an increase of 4.5%), printing and recording reproduction (8.2%), pharmochemical and pharmaceutical products (0.5%) and extractive industries (0.2%) increased. %).

Among the 20 declining activities, the main negative highlights were presented by the sectors of motor vehicles (-6%), computer equipment, electronic and optical products (-13.3%) and chemical products (-2%).

In the analysis of the four major economic categories of the industry, there was growth in intermediate goods, which are industrialized inputs used in the productive sector (1.2%), and in semi- and non-durable consumer goods (0.9%). On the other hand, durable consumer goods (-4.2%) and capital goods, that is, machinery and equipment used in the productive sector (-2.8%) fell.