PMS
Services sector closes 2019 growing 1%, first rise in five years
February 13, 2020 09h00 AM | Last Updated: February 13, 2020 03h18 PM
Photo: Pixabay
Volume of services increased 1% in 2019, interrupting a sequence of four years without positive results: 2015 (-3.6%), 2016 (-5.0%), 2017 (-2.8%) and 2018 (0%). These are data from the Monthly Survey of Services - PMS, released today (13) by the IBGE. The growth was mainly leveraged by the sector of information and communication, which accrued a rise of 3.3% in the year.
"We remained stable in 2018 and now we returned to the positive side, reminding that we had a cumulative loss of 11% between 2015 and 2017. This rise is important, though still far from reaching the best results in the services sector", assesses Rodrigo Lobo, manager of the survey.
Among the information and communication activities, that of portals, content providers and other information services on the Internet influenced the most the positive figure in the year.
"This activity includes, for example, the search engines. Such growth is also justified by the way in which these multinational companies advertise in the social media, which reflects in the increase of the revenue", explains Lobo.
The manager of the survey emphasizes that this activity also stands out for continuously gaining revenue, regardless of any downturn in the sector of services.
"Road transportation of cargo was falling in this period, due to the drop of 1.1% of the industrial sector, which influences this activity a lot", explains him.
Car rental was another positive highlight, which could be influenced by either a change in the behavior of the consumers, who opt to not having a car, or an increase in the number of app drivers, as they rent cars for working.
Volume of services falls 0.4% in December
Volume of services changed -0.4% between November and December, the second drop in the sector in a row. Three out of the five activities surveyed registered negative rates, highlighted by the sector of transportation and mailing (-1.5%), mainly pressed by the sector of land transportation (-3.7%). The other retreats were in professional, administrative and complementary services (-1.3%) and services rendered to families (-1.3%).
Other services (3.4%) posted the most significant positive result, accruing a growth of 5.6% over the last two months, whereas information and communication services (0.4%) recovered nearly the entire drop reported in the previous month (-0.6%).
In regional terms, 16 out of the 27 Federation Units followed the negative change reported in Brazil between November and December. Minas Gerais (-2.1%), the Federal District (-2.7%), Mato Grosso (-5.6%), Paraná (-1.3%) and Bahia (-2.3%) are among the places that recorded negative figures this month. On the other hand, the major positive results came from São Paulo (0.4%) and Rio de Janeiro (0.7%).
