With the increase of 1.2% in the national industry in March, in the seasonally-adjusted series, ten out of 15 places surveyed by the IBGE in this indicator registered positive rates.

The most intense expansion in March 2025 was recorded in Amazonas (5.6%), followed by Espírito Santo (4.6%), Pará (4.6%) and Rio de Janeiro (4.5%).

On the other hand, Pernambuco (-5.0%) reported the highest drop this month, followed by the Northeast Region (-4.1%), Goiás (-2.1%) and Rio Grande do Sul (-1.2%).

Concerning the quarterly moving average (0.4%), ten out of 15 places surveyed registered positive rates in the quarter ended in March, highlighted by the steepest advances recorded in Ceará (3.5%), Rio de Janeiro (2.4%), Espírito Santo (1.2%), São Paulo (1.1%) and Paraná (0.9%).

Compared with the same month a year ago, industry grew 3.1% in Brazil, with positive figures in 11 out of 18 places surveyed. Among them, Paraná (15.1%), Santa Catarina (9.3%) and Pará (9.1%) reported the most intense advances.

In the cumulative index in the year of 2025, the rise of 1.9% of the national industry was followed by positive figures in eight out of 18 places surveyed. As for the cumulative index in 12 months, the industrial sector grew 3.1%, with positive rates in 14 out of 18 places surveyed.

In the expansion of 1.2% of national industry between February and March, in the seasonally-adjusted series, ten out of 15 places surveyed recorded positive rates. Amazonas (5.6%), Espírito Santo (4.6%), Pará (4.6%) and Rio de Janeiro (4.5%) registered the sharpest advances, the first place interrupting two consecutive months of declining output, a period in which it accumulated a reduction of 3.5%; the second and third ones stepping up the expansions of 1.3% and 1.7%, respectively, reported in the previous month; and the last place accumulating a gain of 7.3% in three consecutive months of positive rates. Ceará (3.4%), São Paulo (2.1%) and Bahia (1.6%) also recorded more intense positive rates than the national average (1.2%), whereas Minas Gerais (0.9%), Paraná (0.8%) and Mato Grosso (0.7%) were the other places with positive indexes in March 2025.

On the other hand, Pernambuco (-5.0%) and the Northeast Region (-4.1%) reported the highest retreats this month, both of them offsetting the advances registered in the previous month: 2.4% and 0.1%, respectively. Goiás (-2.1%) and Rio Grande do Sul (-1.2%) recorded negative figure in March 2025 as well.

The quarterly moving average index for industry reported a positive change (0.4%) in the quarter ended in March 2025 over the level of the previous month, interrupting the predominantly downward path started in November 2024. Ten out of 15 places surveyed registered positive rates this month, highlighted by the steeper advances recorded in Ceará (3.5%), Rio de Janeiro (2.4%), Espírito Santo (1.2%), São Paulo (1.1%) and Paraná (0.9%). In contrast, Pernambuco (-10.7%) and the Northeast Region (-2.6%) recorded the major retreats in March 2025.

Compared with March 2024, the national industry rose 3.1% in March 2025, with 11 out of 18 places surveyed reporting positive figures. It is worth mentioning that March 2025 (19 days) had one less business day than the same month in the previous year (20). This month, Paraná (15.1%) registered the most intense advance. Santa Catarina (9.3%), Pará (9.1%), Mato Grosso do Sul (7.6%), Bahia (3.9%) and Rio de Janeiro (3.2%) also recorded more intense positive rates than the national average (3.1%), whereas Espírito Santo (2.6%), Minas Gerais (1.8%), São Paulo (1.8%), Amazonas (1.6%) and Mato Grosso (0.8%) were the other places that grew their production in the monthly index of March 2025.

In Paraná, the rise was mainly leveraged by the positive behavior registered in the sectors of coke, petroleum products and biofuels (diesel fuel, motor gasoline, aviation kerosene and fuel oil), chemicals (urea, herbicides, insecticides and fungicides - all for agricultural use, NPK-based chemical or mineral fertilizers and deodorants), food products (starch and the like, frozen meat and poultry, frozen beef, frozen, fresh or cooled pork, tarts, bagasses and bran from the extraction of soybean oil, candies and bar chocolate, margarine and sausages and other preparations of meat and poultry), electrical machinery and apparatus (switches, domestic portable devices, refrigerators or freezers for domestic use and coaxial cables and other coaxial electrical conductors), motor vehicles, trailers and bodies (cars) and machinery and equipment (agricultural tractors, loaders-transporters, machinery for the pulp sector, elevators for transportation of passengers, harvesters, forklift trucks and backhoe loaders).

Conversely, Pernambuco (-22.6%), Rio Grande do Norte (-19.1%) and Maranhão (-10.5%) recorded two-digit retreats and the highest ones this month, pressed, to a great extent, by the activities of coke, petroleum products and biofuels (diesel fuel), in the first place; of coke, petroleum products and biofuels (motor gasoline and diesel fuel) and mining and quarrying industries (sea salt or non-iodized coarse salt), in the second one; and of mining and quarrying industries (sintered or pelleted iron ore) and basic metals (aluminum oxide and pig iron), in the last place.

The Northeast Region (-4.8%), Rio Grande do Sul (-2.5%), Ceará (-2.0%) and Goiás (-1.5%) also recorded negative figures in the monthly index of March 2025.

The cumulative total for the year 2025, compared to the same period in 2024, showed a 1.9% expansion in the industrial sector, with positive rates in eight out of 18 locations surveyed.

Santa Catarina (8.5%) registered the steepest expansion in the cumulative index for the first three months of 2025, leveraged, to a great extent, by the activities of machinery and equipment (calves, taps and their parts and pieces, forklift trucks, machinery or devices for the agricultural sector, evaporation devices for air cooling and centrifugal pumps), food products (fish preparations and canned fish, frozen poultry and giblets, sausages and other preparations of pork and poultry, and frozen pork), electrical machinery and apparatus (panels, cabins and other supports with electrical interruption or protection devices, liquid dielectric transformers, refrigerators or freezers for domestic use, and alternating or direct current electric motors), fabricated metal products (aluminum frames) and motor vehicles, trailers and bodies (trailers and semi-trailers and car pieces).

On the other hand, Paraná (7.1%) recorded the second sharpest expansion in the cumulative index for the first three months of 2025, leveraged, to a great extent, by coke, petroleum products and biofuels (diesel fuel and motor gasoline), motor vehicles, trailers and bodies (cars and car pieces), chemicals (urea, herbicides and insecticides - both for agricultural use and NPK-based chemical or mineral fertilizers), food products (starch and the like, frozen poultry and giblets, frozen beef, frozen, fresh or cooled pork, and sausages and other preparations for poultry) and machinery and equipment (wheel loaders and backhoe loaders).

Pará (5.1%) and Bahia (2.4%) also reported more intense positive rates than the national average (1.9%), whereas São Paulo (1.1%), Rio Grande do Sul (0.8%), Mato Grosso (0.4%) and Minas Gerais (0.3%) were the other places that grew their production in the cumulative index for the first quarter of 2025.

In contrast, Pernambuco (-20.8%) and Rio Grande do Norte (-19.7%) registered two-digit retreats and the sharpest ones in the cumulative index for the January-March 2025 period, mainly pressed by the negative behavior coming from the activities of coke, petroleum products and biofuels (diesel fuel), in the former place; and of coke, petroleum products and biofuels (motor gasoline and diesel fuel), in the latter.

Maranhão (-8.7%), Espírito Santo (-6.1%), Northeast Region (-4.2%), Amazonas (-3.3%), Mato Grosso do Sul (-1.6%), Ceará (-0.7%), Rio de Janeiro (-0.5%) and Goiás (-0.4%) recorded negative figures in the cumulative index in the year as well.

Having advanced 3.1% in March 2025, the cumulative index over the last 12 months remained on the positive side and stepped up the growth pace against the results of February (2.6%) and January 2025 (2.9%). In regional terms, 14 out of 18 places surveyed recorded positive rates in March 2025, though only nine of them showed more dynamism over the index of last February.

Paraná (from 4.1% to 6.5%), Amazonas (from 0.3% to 1.5%), Santa Catarina (from 7.7% to 8.7%), Mato Grosso do Sul (from 1.9% to 2.8%) and Bahia (from 1.8% to 2.5%) registered the major gains between February and March 2025, whereas Rio Grande do Norte (from -1.1% to -4.0%), Pernambuco (from 0.7% to -0.5%) and Maranhão (from 1.0% to 0.4%) showed the steepest losses between the two periods.

IBGE updates seasonal adjustment methods of short-term surveys

The Brazilian Institute of Geography and Statistics (IBGE) will update the parameters of the seasonal adjustment methods of the Monthly Survey of Industry: Physical Production (PIM-PF) Brazil, Monthly Survey of Industry: Physical Production (PIM-PF) Regional, Monthly Survey of Trade (PMC) and Monthly Survey of Services (PMS).

It is a routine procedure, carried out for the last time in April 2022, aiming at incorporating data of the most recent periods. The statistical modeling applied serves to remove the seasonal and calendar effects of the time series of these surveys, which does not imply in changing the original data.

The complete methodological and technical notes of each survey can be accessed here. For more information on the Seasonal Adjustment of Time Series, access here. The results of the updating of the methods of seasonal adjustment will be available on the release date of each survey: Monthly Survey of Industry (PIM) Brazil - May 7, at 9 am; Monthly Survey of Industry (PIM) Regional - May 14, at 9 am; Monthly Survey of Trade (PMC) - May 15, at 9 am; and Monthly Survey of Services (PMS) - May 14, at 9 am.