Domestic industry
Industrial production drops 2.4% in January and stands below pre-pandemic level
March 09, 2022 09h00 AM | Last Updated: March 10, 2022 11h00 AM
Industrial production registered a reduction of 2.4% in January 2022 compared to the previous month, thus eliminating much of the 2.9% advance registered in December 2021. As a result, industry is 3.5% below the pre-pandemic level, in February 2020, and 19.8% below the record level reached in May 2011. In comparison with the same month of the previous year, the fall was 7.2%. This is what the Monthly Industrial Survey (PIM) points out, released today (March 9) by the IBGE.
“We can see that January is characterized by the loss of dynamism and widespread drop, since all the major economic categories show retreat in production, both in comparison to the previous month and in the comparison with January 2021”, says the survey manager, André Macedo.
The researcher highlights that the expansion seen in December 2021 can be related to the production anticipation due to the fact that January is typically a month of collective vacation and stoppages. He also points out that the negative behavior of the segment seen this month comes from far, having been seen in eight negative rates in 2021.
Even in the cumulative indicator in the last 12 months, in which the industry remains on the rise, with expansion of 3.1%, the advances lose more and more intensity. In August 2021, the rate achieved 7.2%. In September, it went to 6.5%, 5.7% in October, 5.0% in November and 3.9% in December”, explains Mr. Macedo.
Even with the retreat in the pace of the industrial activity in January 2022, the total of industry in the quarterly moving average remained recording a positive rate (0.1%), but with lower intensity than that seen in the previous month (0.8%).
Most activities dropped
In the comparison with December 2021, 20 of the 26 industrial activities surveyed decreased production. Compared to January 2021, 18 fell.
“Industry has been affected by the breakdown in the productive chains due to the pandemic, registering as important characteristics of the process the increase in production costs and the difficulty getting inputs and raw-materials to the production of the final products. Besides, interest and inflation on the rise, coupled with the still high number of unemployed, help explain industry’s negative behavior.”, analyses Mr. Macedo.
Among the activities, the most important negative influences from December 2021 to January 2022 were recorded by motor vehicles, trailers and bodies (-17.4%) and mining and quarrying industries (-5.2%), after accumulating expansion of 18,2% and of 6.0% in the last two months of 2021, respectively. Compared again with January 2021, those activities were the greatest negative impact on the general index, with decrease of 23.5% in the first one and of 6.7% in the second.
“The segment of motor vehicles is a relevant example of productive chain breakdown, since important inputs were difficult to find in order to produce the final product. The mining and quarrying sector, in January 2022, had the iron ore extraction quite affected by the rainfalls in Minas Gerais”, says Mr. Macedo.
More on the survey
PIM Brazil has been producing short-term indicators since the 1970s regarding the behavior of the real product of the mining and quarrying and manufacturing industries. From May 2014, the release of a new series of monthly industrial production indices began, after a reformulation to: update the sample of activities, products and respondents; prepare a new weighting structure for the indices based on the most recent industrial statistics, in order to harmonize with the needs of the implementation the National Accounts Series - reference 2010; and to adopt the new classification of activities and products used by other industry surveys from 2007 onwards, namely: the National Classification of Economic Activities - CNAE 2.0 and the List of Industrial Products - PRODLIST-Industry.
The survey results can also be consulted in the Sidra database.
