Retail sales grow 3% in March

After a widespread drop in Brazilian trade in February, sales in March seem to have recovered their breaths. Second review of Cielo, in the third month of the year sales advanced 3.1 percent compared with the same period last year. "Even discounting the calendar effect, the result of March showed that retailers returned to accelerate after the fall of the pace in February," said the Director of intelligence of the Cielo, Gabriel Mariotto. According to the ICVA, the company index of means of payment Cielo, released yesterday, when adjusted the calendar effect, the index was 2.2% growth deflated, an acceleration compared with 1.5% February high. "Already in nominal terms, a number that reflects what the retailer actually says in the recipe of their sales, the ICVA rose 4.7 percent on March last year," he. In the last week of March, between 25 and 31, run-up to Easter nominal growth was 4.2% over a year earlier. In the first quarter, the ICVA grew 1.7 percent compared with the same period of 2017, discounted the inflation. In nominal terms, the index was 3.2% high in the same analysis. "In the last quarter locks were coming mainly in index retrieval highlighting deflated, but not so strong in nominal, given that inflation was falling. In this last quarter, the nominal number presents its most visible improvement, "said Mariotto. Within the stand growth in March compared to the previous year was driven by the good performance of the sectors of nondurable goods and services, since the trade in durable goods and semi-durable goods had retraction. Regionally, the highlight was the South East, which had the highest acceleration according to the ICVA deflated with calendar adjustment. Already by ICVA deflated without calendar adjustments retailers expanded in the North rose 7%, followed by the South (+ 5.4%) and Northeast (4.5%). Even in this metric, the Southeast and the Midwest had high of 2.6% and 2%, respectively. By ICVA, the highlight was the northern region, which presented high of 7.1%. South and Northeast come in sequence with high of 6.5% and 5.6%.