The confidence indicator for the industrial production sector, which also includes the activities of extractive industries, electricity and water production and distribution, retreated slightly compared to the previous quarter, with its balance remaining above the average of its time series, reveals the National Statistics Institute (INE), in a quarterly survey report.
In the last quarter, the balance fell to 86.1 points from 100.3 registered in the last quarter of 2020.
According to INE, the reduction in confidence in the sector was influenced mainly by the unfavorable assessment of all components of the sector’s summary indicator, but with greater salience for the substantial prospect of falling demand in the reference period.
“In line with the sector’s summary indicator, turnover decreased slightly, which was manifested by the slight increase in stocks, in an environment characterized by the very low outlook for prices in the same period under review,” reads the document.
The source also reveals that about 52% of companies in the industrial sector faced some kind of constraint in the quarter under review, which corresponded to a reduction of 8% of companies with constraints compared to the previous quarter.
As causes, INE says that a number of factors continued to affect the industrial sector, highlighting the lack of raw material (25%), competition (18%) and other unspecified factors (26%) as the main obstacles hindering the optimal performance of the sector.
