Retail has strong high in May
Valor Econômico - 07/16/2008
After having gotten out of breath in April, retail sales resumed growth with force in May, showing a 10.5% high compared to last year's same month and 0.5% over the previous month, in the series with seasonal adjustment. The segment of hypermarkets, supermarkets, food products, beverage and tobacco, which slipped in April, grew 8.4% in comparison with May 2007, even in a setting of inflation increase. The sales of some goods strongly depending on credit continued strong, that is, equipment and office supplies, information technology and communication increased 29.9%, while furniture and electric appliances increased 16.1%. Thus, the increased retail, which includes vehicles and motorcycles and construction material, had a weaker performance, with an advance of 11.3% in relation to May 2007. In April, the high was 15.8%. From January to May, retail increased 10.9% in relation to the first five months of 2007, more than the 10.3% seem in the 12 months until May and the 9.7% of 2007. In April, the hypermarket and supermarket segment increased only 0.5% over the same month of the preceding year and retreated 0.2% in comparison with March, in the series with seasonal adjustment. One of the reasons that explain the weak result is that Easter was in March this year, as explains the head economist of the Convenção brokers Fernando Montero. The hypermarkets and supermarkets sales are always higher in Easter, he remarks. In May, the segment's sales started to grow strongly, being responsible for 39% of retail's high in the month and being "responsible for the highest contribution to the global rate in the retail", according to the Brazilian Institute of Geography and Statistics (IBGE).