Santa Catarina has retail growth of 9.5% in the first half of 2018

Sales volume grew 9.5% in comparison with the first six months of last year. The data are from monthly survey of Commerce, disclosed by IBGE on Friday. The State presented the third largest increase in the country, behind only Rio Grande do Norte and Roraima (both with 9.9%). On the other hand, with the biggest setbacks in sales include Goiás (-2.6%), followed by Federal District (-2.4%). In the country, the increase was 2.9%. Forward to June 2017, trade of Santa Catarina registered 6.9% increment. — SC was one of the first States to begin a process of recovery of trade in the second half of last year. This is due to a number of factors, such as more egalitarian income distribution, lower unemployment and higher credit access — says the Chief Economist of the Federation of trade in goods, services and tourism (Fecomércio-SC), Luciano Cordoba. However, the expert adds that the Teamsters ' outage impacted on the sector's recovery, which explains the negative result of the volume of sales in May (-4.2%) and the stagnation in June, compared with the previous month. In the country, there was a fall of 0.3% in June. The Economist added that the uncertainty of election period also impacts on sales development. — It is expected to close the year with growth over the past year, as 2017 was very bad for trade. Predicting a strong recovery from 2019 — adds. On comparison between June and may, in the State of Santa Catarina the retail trade expanded, including the activities of vehicles and construction material, had an increase of 2.8% – above the country, which had an increase of 2.5%. In the first half of the year, compared with the same period last year, the jump was 13%. Consumer profile has changed, says economist high in the first half of this year was pulled by the segment of personal and household items – which includes department stores, optical, sporting goods and toys –, with 16.5% increment. In second place comes the supermarket sector, food and drinks, with 14.2% growth in the period. Economist Luciano Córdova explains that the supermarket and pharmaceutical sector, for example, because growth is less dependent on credit. Moreover, the advancement of supermarket sales reflects a change in consumer behavior: — before the crisis, grew the restaurant segment and food outside the home, with the reduction of income, people returned to consume at home and buy at the supermarket — explains. Estimated improvement in coming months By using different methodology, the survey of Santa Catarina Association of Supermarkets (Acats) points a fall of 0.7% in the first six months of 2018. According to the analysis, the result was impacted by the outage of the Teamsters. But the expectations are positive for the coming months: — For the supermarkets, the second half is historically a more consistent sales period within the year and we believe that this tradition should be maintained, although the level of unemployment in Brazil continue high and this directly affects the activity of trade — the President of the entity, Paulo Cesar Lopes. At the other end, the sales volume of Commerce of Santa Catarina has recorded low on items of equipment and materials for Office, information technology and communication (-10.3%) compared with the first six months of 2017. Córdova explains that the negative result in materials for Office, for example, reflects the retraction of investment companies and Government spending — is worrisome, because it is the indicator that the investments didn't return to occur, since the materials of the work, so to speak, are not being replenished — says.