Real sales of the industry grow without any pressure on the installed capacity
Valor Econômico - 03/12/2008
The January indexes show an expressive real growth of the whole industry. In the comparison with the same month of last year, the sales increased 10.5%, the hours worked increased 7%, the number of people employed increased 5.2% and the salary mass grew 7.5%. In the comparison with December - series with the seasonal adjustment -, the industry hired more, paid more hours of production and increased its real sales without increasing the use of the installed capacity. This index was 83.1% in January, which means stability in relation to the data from December, 2007. Compared to January of last year, the use of the installed capacity grew 1.8%. The variations were showed by the monthly survey of the National Confederation of the Industry (CNI), which also revealed that, in January, the three most dynamic segments were: production of automotive vehicles, food and beverage, and machinery and equipment. These sectors presented the best sales' performance, and the best activity and jobs' figures (are in). The CNI's head economist, Flávio Castelo Branco, explained that the research methodology was updated and the names of some indexes were changed, but January continued showing the tendency of continuity and intensification of the growth. In the beginning of 2008, the rhythm was stronger than the first months of 2007's and 2006's. "The industry shows vigor and this tendency may go on in the next months", he declares. The figures from February may keep this strong expansion context that has been occurring since the last quarter of last year, foresees the analyst. According to the CNI, the good performance of the industry is due to the heating in the domestic consumption that, on its turn, has been pushed up by the salary mass, the credit and the increase on the federal public expenditures above the rate of growth of the Gross Domestic Product (GDP). The three characteristics of the industry's performance in January, according to CNI, are: intensity and regularity of the growth and stability in the use of the installed capacity. The annual growth rates are the highest in the last three years, which means intensity. And regularity can be shown by three behaviors. The first one is the growth of sales for six consecutive months. Besides, the activity (worked hours) has been increasing for more than one year and the number of people employed has not retreated for 26 months.