Brazil’s industrial output closes out 2024 with 3.1% growth
Brazil’s industrial production closed out 2024 with a growth of 3.1 percent from 2023. The annual result is the third highest in the last 15 years and was driven by factors such as rising employment and income. The data were released Wednesday (Feb. 5) by the country’s statistics bureau IBGE.
The annual increase was achieved despite three straight months of industrial decline. In December, production was down 0.3 percent, after having fallen in both October (-0.2%) and November (-0.7%). The December result was 1.6 percent higher than in the same time span in 2023.
The new figures mean that the domestic industry is 1.3 percent above the pre-pandemic level of February 2020, but 15.6 percent below the highest point, reached in May 2011. The current level of production is similar to that of December 2009.
The 3.1 percent surge of 2024 surpasses 2023’s 0.1 percent. In the last 15 years, it is second only to 2010, which saw a 10.2 percent rise, and 2021, when it expanded 3.9 percent, a time of recovery after the initial impact of the pandemic. In 2020, a 4.5 percent drop was recorded, while in 2009 Brazilian industry faced a 7.1 percent drop, when the world was going through a global economic crisis.
The data indicate that, unlike 2010 and 2021, growth in 2024 did not benefit from a downward scenario.
Widespread growth
IBGE Survey Manager André Macedo pointed out that the expansion of the industry in 2024 was quite widespread, with positive figures in the four major economic categories—capital goods, intermediate goods, durable goods, and general goods—and in 20 of the 25 industrial branches surveyed.
“In general, the growth of the industrial sector in 2024 can be understood through a number of factors—such as the greater number of people joining the job market, the fall in the unemployment rate, the increase in the wage bill, and the increase in household consumption, benefiting from tax stimuli, higher incomes, and the evolution in the granting of credit,” he stated.
