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Less favourable external environment for the Portuguese economy. Economic climate indicator stabilizes
Monthly Economic Survey
Less favourable external environment for the Portuguese economy. Economic climate indicator stabilizes - September 2014
17 October 2014

Summary
Industrial Production Index decelerated in Euro Area (EA) in August, shifting from a 0.9% change rate in July to 0.4%. In September, the consumer confidence and the economic sentiment indicators for the EA diminished. In the same month, the raw materials and oil prices presented monthly change rates of -4.3% and -1.4% (-1.2% and -3.2% in July), respectively.
In Portugal, the economic climate indicator, already available for September, stabilized in the highest value since July 2008. The economic activity indicator, available until August, also stabilized while the information from Short Term Statistics revealed a negative evolution in services and construction and positive in industry. The private consumption indicator presented a more intense year on year growth rate in August, reflecting the increase of the positive contribution of the non-durable consumption component. In the same month, the Gross Fixed Capital Formation (GFCF) indicator increased, due to the lower negative contribution of the construction component. Concerning the international trade of goods, exports and imports recorded year on year nominal change rates of 2.4% and 3.2% in August (1.6% and 4.8% in the previous month), respectively. Without considering three months moving average, nominal exports and imports of goods shifted from 1.6% and 2.8% change rates in July to -2.2% and  3.1% in August, respectively. This behaviour might be partially explained by the fact that August 2014 had one working day less than the same month of the previous year.
The year-on-year change rate of the Consumer Price Index (CPI) was -0.4% in August and September (-0.9% in July). In the last month, the goods component registered a -1.1% change rate ( 1.6% in August) and the services component 0.7% (less 0.7 percentage points than in the previous month). The Harmonized Consumer Price Index (HCPI) was 0.3 percentage points lower than the EA HICP in September (0.5 percentage points lower in August).

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