Business confidence falls 0.7 point in February compared with January, reveals FGV

The index of business confidence (ICE) fell 0.7 point in February compared to January, to 97.0 points, the first retreat after four months of advance, reported on Thursday, 18, the Getulio Vargas Foundation (FGV). In the quarterly moving averages metric, the index still grew by 0.7 point in the month. "The fall in business confidence in February was caused by gauge expectations, they were evolving favourably in previous months. Despite the fall in the month, the index of Expectations remained slightly above 100 points, portraying a shy optimism about the coming months. The result supports the thesis that, past the honeymoon period with the new Government, the resumption of business confidence will be limited as economic uncertainty levels remain high "evaluated Aloisio Campelo Junior, Superintendent of Public statistics of Brazilian Institute of Economics from FGV (Ibre/FGV), in official statement. The Business confidence index gathers the data of the surveys of industry, services, Commerce and construction. The calculation takes into account the weights proportional to the participation in the economy of the sectors investigated, based on information extracted from the annual structural surveys the Brazilian Institute of geography and statistics (IBGE). According to the FGV, the goal is to allow a more consistent assessment ICE about the pace of economic activity. In February, the Current Situation index (ISA) rose 0.9 point to 92.2 points, the highest level since June 2014. Already the Expectations index (IE) retreated 1.5 point to 101.7 points, after advancing for seven months in a row. Among the components of the ICE, there was improvement only in industry confidence, which advanced 0.8 point to 99.0 points. The Business confidence index collection brought together the four companies 4,381 information sectors between 1st and February 22.