In September 2015, prices in industry changed -0.32% over the
previous month, a higher figure than that of November (-0.42%). The cumulative index in 2015 closed at 8.84%, against 2.66% in December 2014. Among the 24 activities of the mining and manufacturing industries, 13 recorded positive changes in the prices, against 12 in the previous month. The Producer Price Index (IPP) measures the evolution of the prices of products "at the factory gate", discounted taxes and freight.
The complete publication of the IPP can be accessed here.

In December 2015, the prices of the Overall Industry changed, on average, -0.32% when compared with November 2015, a higher figure than the comparison between November 2015 and October 2015 (-0.42%) (Table 1).

Table 1
Producer Price Index, according to Overall Industry and Sections Last three months

Source: IBGE, Diretoria de Pesquisas, Coordenação de Indústria.

In December 2015 over November, 13 out of the 24 activities registered positive changes of prices, against 12 in the previous month. The four highest changes recorded in December 2015 occurred among the products included in the following industrial activities: Mining and quarrying industries (-6.07%), printing (3.39%), manufacture of wearing apparel and accessories (-3.18%) and other chemicals (-2.68%).

In this comparison, the major influences came from other chemicals (-0.29 p.p.), mining and quarrying industries (-0.18 p.p.), food products (0.14 p.p.) and motor vehicles (0.07 p.p.).

In December 2015, the cumulative index in the year hit 8.84%, against 9.20% in November 2015. Among the activities that posted the highest percentage changes, the highlights were: other transportation equipment (33.62%), tobacco (32.02%), pulp and paper (21.21%) and food products (14.28%).

Table 2
Producer Price Indexes, according to Sections and Activities of Industry (%)
2015

Source: IBGE, Diretoria de Pesquisas, Coordenação de Indústria.

The sectors that exerted the greatest influence on the cumulative index in the year were: food products (2.72 p.p.), other chemicals (1.24 p.p.), pulp and paper (0.72 p.p.) and other transportation equipment (0.71 p.p.).

Table 3
Producer Price Indexes, according to Sections and Activities of Industry - Influence (p.p) and Weighting (%)
2015

Source: IBGE, Diretoria de Pesquisas, Coordenação de Indústria.

In December 2015, the Major Economic Categories changed -0.32% over November (table 4): 0.05% in capital goods; -0.81% in intermediate goods; and 0.39% in consumer goods, being 0.26% in durable consumer goods and 0.43% in semi and non-durable consumer goods. .

Table 4
Producer Price Indexes, saccording to Overall Industry and Major Economic Categories
Last three months

Source: IBGE, Diretoria de Pesquisas, Coordenação de Indústria.

The influence of the Major Economic Categories on the overall industry (-0.32%) was as follows (table 5): 0.00 p.p. from capital goods, -0.46 p.p. from intermediate goods and 0.13 p.p. from consumer goods. In the case of consumer goods, 0.11 p.p. was due to price changes registered in semi and non-durable consumer goods and 0.02 p.p. in durable consumer goods.

Table 5
Producer Price Indexes, according to Major Economic Categories - Influence (p.p) and Weighting (%)
2015

Source: IBGE, Diretoria de Pesquisas, Coordenação de Indústria.

As to the cumulative index in the year, the industrial prices changed 8.84% until December, being 12.38% due to capital goods (influencing 1.04 p.p.), 8.33% to intermediate goods (4.74 p.p.) and 8.83%% due to consumer goods (3.05 p.p.). In this last case, the price increase was influenced by "durable consumer goods" (0.50p.p.) and by "semi and non-durable consumer goods" (2.55 p.p.).

The analysis of the information in tables 3 and 4 detailed eight sectors that were among the four major highlights in December 2015 in at least one of the following criteria: highest price changes and major influences, both in the three comparisons: M/M_-1, cumulative in the year and M/M_-12, and major weightings.

Mining and quarrying industries: in 2015, the prices of products of the mining and quarrying industries retracted 9.33% (in 2014, the decline was of 31.60%). The drop was of 6.07% in December, against -10.08% in November. This sector stood out in December as it was listed as one of the highest changes – it registered the highest negative rate – and also as one of the major influences – the second negative influence (-0.18 p.p.), behind Other chemicals (-0.29 p.p.) – among all the activities of the mining and manufacturing industries.

Food products: the prices of this sector changed 14.28% throughout 2015, the third highest in the time series – 21.24% in 2010 and 14.86% in 2012 –, following, on its turn, the lowest in 2014 (0.96%). The December over November figure was 0.73%, higher than that in the previous month (0.36%) and influencing all the computed indicators.

The major changes took place in products that do not belong to the group of higher weights, which was not the case of those with higher influence, which included "residue of soybean oil extraction", "crystallized sugar" and "fresh or cooled beef" in addition to "refined soybean oil". Among these four products, the only negative influence was due to the behavior of the prices of "residue of soybean oil extraction". Anyway, the four products contributed with 0.46 p.p. (of 0.73%).

On the longer term, the products that mostly influenced the 2015´s figure – cumulative index in the year in December matched M/M_-12 index – were "crystallized sugar", "refined soybean oil", "concentrated orange juice" and "crude soybean oil". Throughout the year, the prices of these products were influenced by the currency rate – since they are exporting goods – and by the increase in the gasoline price – which regulates how much alcohol and sugar are produced from sugarcane –, as well as by particular issues of the soybean market. Despite the record harvest in world terms, Brazil faced problems to drain the harvest, and then excess of rainfall at planting time, either delaying it or requiring replanting.

Pulp and paper: the producer price of this sector changed, on average, -1.93% in December 2015, after an unchanged November when compared with October. This was the highest drop of prices in this sector in 2015 – the other was of -1.06% in April – and could be attributed to a smaller internal demand and to competitive adjustments in the prices. Regardless of the drop, this sector recorded a cumulative increase in the prices of 21.21% in 2015.

The products that mostly influenced the price reduction in December 2015 were "toilet paper", "pulp", "notebooks" and "disposable diapers". This sector contributed with -0.07 p.p. to the producer price index in December.

Other chemicals: the chemical industry posted a negative change of 2.68% in December for the second time in a row, breaking a series of positive price changes for five consecutive months and registering a cumulative index in the year of 11.96%, the highest change since December 2010 (15.76%).

It should be highlighted that the four products with the highest price changes in the month-over-month index recorded negative figures. They were: "Styrene-butadiene rubber", "unsaturated ethylene (ethene)", "monoammonium and diammonium phosphates" and "printing ink". Only "unsaturated ethylene (ethene)" was among the four products with the highest weight in this activity, which made it one of the four products with the highest influence in December. The others were "NPK-based manure and fertilizers", "HDPE" and "LDPE", all of them registering negative price changes and highly weighting in this activity.

The four products that mostly influenced in the month-over-month comparison accounted for -1.83 p.p. in the result of -2.68%. In other words, the other 28 products contributed with -0.85 p.p.

Other transportation equipment: the prices of this sector changed 1.90% in December 2015 in relation to the immediately previous month, after recording negative changes in the last two months in this type of comparison (M/M_-1). The December´s result was mainly due to the higher prices of "airplanes weighting more than 2,000kg", priced at international currency, matching the signal of the currency exchange (R$/US$) observed in the largest part of the time series of this indicator.

In the year, the prices of this sector posted a cumulative rise of 33.62%, the highest rate of the mining and manufacturing industries, exerting the fourth greatest influence on the overall index in 2015.