Companies keep investments high
Folha de S. Paulo - 07/20/2008
Based on financial statements from 800 companies of sectors of the industry, commerce and services, Serasa verified the entrepreneurs increased investments in the first quarter of this year compared to same period of 2007. Inflation and high interests started being a greater concern for companies in the second quarter, but not to the point of making them interrupt the projects to expand production or substitute machines and equipment, as verified the Conjuncture Survey of the Transformation Industry made in June by the Getulio Vargas Foundation. In the first quarter, the investment rate of 800 companies which released balance sheets was 7.4%, above the rate of the same period of 2007 (7.2%) and 2006 (6.3%). In order to get to this point, Serasa considered the value of the growth of the fixed assets of the companies from one year to the other over the net earnings in the period. "With the economy growing since 2004, all sectors invested more", says Márcio Torres, Serasa's credit analysis manager and coordinator of the study. The service industry, which includes the electric energy and telephone services, was the sector that presented the highest investment rate in the first quarter, 9.7%. The industrial sector registered a rate of 7.8%, and commerce, 1.3%. Within Services, the highest rate was from the electric energy sector, 14.3%; and, in Industry, were the sectors of paper and pulp (11.5%), steel (9.5%) and chemistry (9.2%). For Torres, Serasa's expectation is that such percentage should be repeated or even increased this year.