Industrial sales fell by 4.3% in April, following growth of 3.9% the previous month, the National Statistics Institute (INE) said today.
“The industrial sales index recorded a nominal decline of 4.3% in April, which represents a decrease of 8.2 percentage points (p.p.) compared to March,” the statistical institute said in a document published today.
The institute also draws attention to the fact that April this year had one less working day than the corresponding month and five less than the previous month, which may have influenced the variation in industrial activity in April.
Excluding the energy group, industrial sales fell by 1.7% in April, following growth of 8.9% in March.
The index for the domestic market was -5.5%, while for the foreign market the value was negative 2.5%, compared with -0.5% and 10.3% respectively in March.
The domestic sales index “accentuated the year-on-year reduction by 5.0 percentage points” to -5.5% in April, contributing -3.2 percentage points to the change in the total index – compared with -0.3 p.p. in March.
Sales to the foreign market “fell by 2.5% in April, following growth of 10.3% in March, resulting in a contribution of -1.0 p.p. (4.2 p.p. the previous month)”, adds the INE.
The employment, remuneration and hours worked indices posted annual variations of 1.0%, 7.1% and -1.4%, compared with 1.2%, 7.8% and 4.6% respectively in March.
