|
 Brazil's industry sales grew 8.4% in the first half of this year over the same period last year. In the same comparison, sales of industries in the state of Santa Catarina registered further growth, of 10.3%. Despite the performance above the national average, industries of the state of Santa Catarina posted a reduction in hours worked.
In June, the reduction was 0.29% when compared to May, and in the accumulated result for the first five months of the year, the level was 1.42% below the result for the first six months of 2007.
The indices for industries from the state of Santa Catarina were presented at the offices of the Federation of Industries of the State of Santa Catarina (Fiesc) by Renato da Fonseca, executive manager at the Research, Evaluation and Development Unit of the National Confederation of Industries (CNI), and by Fiesc president Alcantaro Corrêa.
The level of use of the installed capacity grew to 83.3% in June, boosted by greater industrial activity. This expansion contrasts with the reduction registered in May.
Instability of the index in May and June, not considering seasonal results, does not, however, modify the trajectory of stability observed since the fourth quarter of 2007. In Santa Catarina the index rose from 83.78% in the first half of last year to 83.94% in the same period this year.
Fonseca said that the elevation of use of installed capacity is generally seen as inflationary pressure, that industry cannot cope with demand. However, he pointed out that although the use of installed capacity in the country is rising within the figures analyzed by the CNI, the index has advanced less than production and sales in recent months, and has been practically stable since the end of 2007.
This shows, according to the economist, that investment made by industries, mainly since 2006, is starting to mature, causing them to produce more without increasing use of capacity and therefore reducing the risk of inflation.
The president at Fiesc also commented the growing inflation. Corrêa said that he recently visited the United States and noticed that the largest economy in the world is also suffering price hikes, as well as living the real estate crisis.
"But they are getting by, and this also creates opportunities. Sales of houses have dropped, but many people are redoing their homes, which creates new demand," he said.
CNI
 |
Subscribe to this comment's feed
The small, coastal town of Condé is located just a twenty minute's drive from João Pessoa, the capital of Paraíba. The Northeast of Brazil has historically been a place of encounter and mixing between peoples. For millenia groups of indigenous people fished, farmed, migrated and sometimes fought along this large, fertile area. 
The Brazilian diplo-MÁ-cia (bad diplomacy) carries on its accelerated course towards the non-acknowledgment of human rights, although sometimes it takes pleasure in saying that it does precisely the opposite. The visit of Iran's president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, is another example of a diplomatic omission that verges on hypocrisy. 
On July 4, 2006, representatives of Argentina, Brazil, Paraguay and Uruguay met in Caracas to sign the protocol for the entrance of Venezuela into the Southern Common Market (Mercosur). After two and a half years, the protocol was approved by the legislative bodies of Argentina and Uruguay, and as of now it may be only days away from being ratified by the continent's economic megalith, Brazil. 
Some sectors of the fight against AIDS have suggested that Thabo Mbeki, the former president of South Africa, committed genocide through his absence from the fight against the illness in his country throughout his two terms. 
One hundred and eleven years after Brazil abolished slavery, the number of workers deprived of their freedom is still huge. They raise cattle, produce charcoal, sugar cane or timber. Some of them, most undocumented Bolivians, work in basements of small apparel factories in São Paulo and other metropolis. 
On November 7, 2009 a few friends and I had an opportunity to take a look inside a Brazilian jail outside the city of Rio de Janeiro. We were able to take some amateur footage of our experience on video (see link below). It's no surprise, of course, that the typical Brazilian jail lacks some of the functionality of those in North America or Europe, but our experience that day was quite shocking. 
Depletion of the Amazon Rainforest is not a new concern facing environmentalists, biologists, ecologists, and a growing number of the Amazonian indigenous peoples. For decades they have feared for the fate of the world's most biologically diverse and species-rich hothouse. 
Geisy Arruda made history this week in Brazil, but for all the wrong reasons. What began as a poorly planned fashion statement has become a worldwide tale. Geisy decided to wear a pink mini-dress to her private college in São Paulo state, and after that, all hell broke loose. 
The push of vigilante groups in Rio de Janeiro's favelas (shantytowns) in the last three years is the most important and alarming information of the just-released study by the Rio de Janeiro University's Violence Research Center (Nupev-Uerj). 
A dispute over drug trafficking territory in Rio de Janeiro has intensified lately, leaving in its wake unprecedented acts of violence, such as the downing of a police helicopter in the northern zone of the city on October 17. Three policemen died and another two were injured. This event has drawn the attention of the international media, who are raising the issue of public security for the 2016 Olympics to be held in Rio.