The results of the National Accounts of Brazil for the year 2003, revealed a growth rate of 0.5%, and implicit deflator of 15.0%...

The results of National Accounts of Brazil for 2003 recorded growth rate of 0.5% and an implicit deflator of 15.0%, causing GDP to reach, in current figures, the amount of R$ 1,556 trillion. The income per capita was R$ 8,694.5, with real decrease of -0.9%.  

Agriculture was, once more, the most dynamic sector, with increase of 4.5%. Services recorded increase of 0.6%, and Industry was stable.

In terms of demand, there were decreases in Final Consumption (-0.8%) and Gross Fixed Capital Formation (-5.1%). Exports and Imports of Goods and Services recorded changes of 9.0% and -1.7%, respectively.

Results of National Accounts in 2003 form the new series
of the Monthly Survey of Industry - pim/pf

From this moment on, with the release of National Accounts 2003 on, results of the new series of the Monthly Survey of Industry will be incorporated, according to a Technical Note available on the IBGE website since Abril 28, last year. This release also included data relative to the new series for demographic increase as estimated by the Department of Population and Social Indicators, the series of medical services of the Unified Health System and the results of the National Household Sample Survey (PNAD) of 2003.

 RESULTS BY SECTORS

The increase of Agriculture occurred mainly due to the good performance of crop products, both in relation to amount and to prices, causing the contribution of agriculture to change from 8.7%, in 2002, to 9.9% in 2003, in terms of value added. As for animal production, Cattle and Hogs and Pigs had the best performance, with increase of 4% in comparison with the production of the previous year.

In the sector of Services, Trade (-1.9%) and Services rendered to enterprises (-0.8%) were the only subsectors which recorded decreases in 2003. In the period, the biggest increase was that of Transportation (1.4%). Other subsectors recorded increase: 1.8%, Communications; 1.4%, Services rendered to families; 1.3%, Rents; 1.0%, Public administration and 0.6%, Financial institutions.

The Industrial activities which recorded significant decrease in terms of volume, at basic prices were: Manufacturing and Maintenance of Electronic Appliances and Equipment (8.9%); Production of Chemical Elements (7.8%) and Manufacturing of Machines and Tractors (7.4%). Negative highlights occurred in the following activities: Processing of Vegetable-Based Products, including Tobacco (-10.7%), Manufacturing Industry of Plastic Material (-7.6%); Manufacturing of Apparel and Accessories (-6.9%) and Manufacturing of Footwear (-6.9%).

Gross Fixed Capital Formation (GFCF) remained on a downward trend in its participation in te Brazilian economy, as observed since year 2000. As a result, its participation in GDP decreased from 19.3%, in 2000, to 17.8%, in 2003.

Current transactions record their first surplus since 1992

The external sector, stimulated by the excellent performance of goods and services, presented signs of recovery, mainly due to current transactions, which recorded a surplus, the first one since 1992. The behavior of exports of goods was the main cause of this performance, since it reached the record figure of R$ 225.7 billion in 2003. A the same time, imports reached the amount of R$ 198.8 billion, resulting in an external balance of goods and services of R$ 56.1 billion. The devaluated currency was one of the factors accounting for the positive efffects of exports throughout 2003. Another favorable factor was the significant increase of agriculture, especially of traditional products from exports.

Country registers reduction of dependence on foreign capital

The reduction of dependence of foreign capital occurred mainly due to the significant increase of savings in the private sector, which changed from R$ 259.6 billion, in 2002, to R$ 333.7 billion, in 2003. This increase made up for the worsening of savings in the public sector, which had reached a deficit of R$ 16.5 billion in 2003, whereas, versus R$ 10.4 billion in the previous year. It is worth mentioning that this change resulted from the high deficit of savings from public administration, from R$ 36 billion, above the positive result of savings of public enterprises, which reached R$ 19.5 billion.

The nominal expansion of R$ 41.5 billion of investment  resulted from the increase of R$ 46.7 billion of private investments and decrease of R$ 5.2 billion of investment in the public sector - government and private enterprises. All that was reflected in the decrease of the investment rate on the economy overall, which changed from 18.3% in 2002, to 17.8% in 2003. The savings rate of economy kept its upward trend as started in 1999, having changed from 19.2%, in 2002, to 21.0%, in 2003. 

The rise of disposable income in 2003, of R$ 208.4 billion, resulted, mainly, from the increase of the gross operating surplus (R$ 104.6 billion) and considerable decrease of expenses with interest, amounting to R$ 179.6 billion, especially from financial companies (R$ 181.3 billion) and non-financial ones (R$ 40.9 billion). 

Public Administration 

Public Administration recorded increase of its net lending, with a change from R$ 34.8 billion in 2002 to R$ 59.4 billion in 2003.

This behavior was mainly due to the low increase of gross disposable income, which changed 4.5% in relation to 2002 (R$ 12.1 billion in nominal terms). The perfromance of disposable income is seen as a result of the tax revenue of government, whcih reached R$ 529.3 billion in 2003, having grown less than the payment of benefits (16%) and interest (51%).

Resulting from this tax collection and the performance of GDP, the tax burden faced reduction in 2003, having changed from 34.9% to 34.0% of the GDP, still at a level above that of 2001.  Part of this performance was due to the pace of increase of collection, which was below that of last year.  In 2002, for example, CIDE was implemented, and a CPMF of 0.38% was charged throughout the year, contributing even more to collection that year.

The increase of disposable income of 4.5% was not enough to encompass all the final government consumption expenditure. In other words, all the government has spent  in order to offer public services to society, such as security, education, health, national defense and other, increased R$ 38.6 billion, and consumed all the disposable income, generating negative savings of R$ 36.09 billion in 2003 versus R$ 7.8 billion in 2002.

So, despite the decrease of gross fixed capital formation by R$ 3.2 billion, the government closed the year with net lending of R$ 59.4 billion.

Non-financial and financial enterprises

Despite the stability of economy in 2003, non-financial companies presented significant improvement of their results, having changed from net lending of R$ 20.9 billion in 2002, to R$ 8.1 billion in 2003. This performance occurred mainly due to net financial results, which changed from -R$ 70.0 billion in 2002 to R$ -R$ 58.0 billion in 2003. This fact was mainly affected by currency exchange, once Real presented average devaluation of 24.3% in 2002; in 2003 average devaluation was only 5.4%.

Financial companies recorded similar results to those of 2002. The slight average growth of spread, from 30% in 2002 to 31.9% in 2003, together with the rise of Selic rate (average) from 19.6% in 2002 to 23.1% in 2003, were not enough to make up for the decrease of credit volume in the year. That caused both savings and net lending to record small decreases.  Savings changed from R$ 27.6 billion in 2002 to R$ 26.0 billion in 2003, whereas net lending changed from R$ 28.0 billion to R$ 25.1 billion in the period. 

Households

The sector of households also improved in relation to 2002. Despite the real decrease of average income of about 1.9%, nominal increase of compensation grew 13.6% (from R$ 486.8 million to R$ 554.5 million), associated to the decrease of consumption of families (-1.5% in relative terms), and to a bigger increase of percentages of benefits received (15.6%) in relation to social contributions paid (11.6%), caused net lending to change from R$ 12.2 billion, in 2002, to R$ 37.4 billion, in 2003. It is important to consider that the sector of families is formed not only by consuming families, but also by all the agricultural activity self-employed workers, and micro-enterprises. These sectors also contributed positively to this result.

For the first time in 10 years, country presents Net Lending

As a result of the surplus of current transactions, net lending  of the country, which was R$ 15.4 billion in 2002, changed into net lending of R$ 11.2 billion in 2003. This change occurred mainly due to the External balance of goods and services, which changed from a surplus of R$ 27.9 billion to R$ 56.1 billion in 2003. It is worth mentioning that this result interrupts a series of ten consecutive years when the national economy recorded Net Lending.