Industry and investments push economy upwards
Folha de S. Paulo - 06/11/2008
On the side of production, the great prominence of the GDP in the first quarter of this year was the industry, with a 6.9% expansion compared to the same period of 2007 and 1.6% compared to last year's fourth quarter. Concerning consumption, on its turn, the investment kept the good performance and led the growth - increases of 15.2% compared to the first quarter of 2007 and 1.3% compared to the fourth quarter of 2007. According to the IBGE (Brazilian Institute of Geography and Statistics), the industry had its best result since the second quarter of 2004 (12.3%) in the rate compared to the same period of the previous year. The manufacturing sector took advantage of the growth of civil construction and of branches of the transformation industry, such as machinery and equipment, automobiles, steel and electric material. The transformation industry, the heaviest of the industrial branch, grew 7.3% compared to the first quarter of 2007. Its performance was only surpassed by the construction sectors index, which increased 8.8%, the greatest since the second quarter of 2004 (10.6%). According to the IBGE, the industry grows influenced by the vast credit that stimulates the sales of branches like vehicles. The expansion of sales also favors the sector. In the first quarter, the salary mass went 6.9% up. But perhaps the most relevant data of the first quarter may have been the vigorous investment expansion that has been repeated for 17 consecutive quarters and reduces the risk of future inflationary pressures.