Crops bring unprecedented drop in food industry prices in 2018
January 30, 2018 09h00 AM | Last Updated: January 30, 2018 10h58 AM
Driven by the record crop of Brazilian agriculture, the food industry had the first drop in prices in one year (-7.29%) since 2010, when the time series of the Producer Price Index (IPP), released today by IBGE, began. Good harvests of soybeans, sugarcane and rice were some of the causes of such result, which was the main negative influence on the 2017 rate of 4.18%. In the comparison between December and November, the change was 0.46%.
"The food sector is the one that weighs most in this index and made the category of non-durable consumer goods to have negative results (-0.63% in the year)", explains IBGE analyst Manuel Campos. "It was the sector with the biggest drop in 2017, followed by apparel (-5.0%)."
While on the one hand food prices pushed prices down in the year, on the other, the rise in petroleum products boosted the overall result. "Among the positive indexes, petroleum had a great change, followed by the chemical sector, mining and quarrying and basic metals," analyzed Campos.
In relation to December figures, the main sectors accounting for the 0.46% increase compared to November were also the mining and quarrying and refining sectors, as well as basic metals and chemicals. Just like it happened all over 2017, the food sector had a significant drop in the month (-0.19%).
"Meanwhile, the mining and quarrying sector grew 4.59% in one single month. It is a sector that varies a lot along the year. The refining sector also increased (0.82%), driven by ethanol, natural gas and naphtha. This trend was followed by the chemical sector, which had a significant change (0.53%), as well as basic metals (0.74%), "he concludes.
