Thanks to some revisions by the IBGE (Instituto Brasileiro de Geografia and EstatÀstica – Brazilian Institute of Geography and Statistics) 2004 has become the best year the Brazilian economy has seen in 18 years, growing at a fast clip of 8.3%.
The 8.3% expansion is superior even to the progress in 1994, the year the Plano Real was established. That year the economy grew by 7.6%. The growth was led by the sectors of durable goods, including appliances and automobiles and of capital goods, including machines and equipment.
In contrast with the sector of non-durable consumer goods like food, which had an increase of only 4%, the production of capital goods advanced 19.7%, and the one of durable goods grew by a robust 21.8%.
The whole Brazilian industry experienced growth in 2004. Twenty six of the 27 segments researched showed to be in expansion. These results were possible thanks to growing exports, a bigger offer of the credit and investment in production.
The autoindusty sector, for example, experienced a 27.6% growth when compared to the previous year. Compared to November December production had a positive variation of 0.6%.
This recuperation in the last month of the year was led by the recovery of the segments that depend on income like semidurables (clothes, shoes) and non durables, which had a 3.4% growth. Other sectors had a more modest performance.
The 18-year record also happened due to the several revisions made by the IBGE. This way, November, which previously presented a 0.4% fall became a 0.3% increase. October also went up from 0% to 0.2% and September changed from 0.2% to 0%. Almost every month had is results reviewed upwards.
Silvio Sales, IBGE’s industry coordination chief, explained that the revisions are a result of a methodology that requires seasonal adjustment. According to him it’s customary that the companies send new information after the IBGE has closed its monthly research.
“The market knows about the procedures adopted by us, and a lot of forecasts already incorporate possible revisions”, he said. For him, methodolgy is the only reason behind so many revisions.
BrM