Summary
In August, the economic sentiment and the consumer confidence indicators continued to recover in the Euro Area (EA) and in the European Union (EU27).
In Portugal, the economic climate indicator, available until August, increased significantly in the last four months, after registering in April the lowest value of the series. The economic activity indicator remained fairly stable between May and July, although maintaining the negative trend started in the beginning of 2008. The private consumption indicator has been decreasing less intensely since April, reflecting in July a less negative contribution of the durable consumption, while the non-durable consumption component slightly decelerated. In July, the GFCF indicator diminished less intensely, interrupting the downward movement of the previous month, due to the less negative behaviour of the transport material component. Notice that the positive path observed in the last months in the private consumption and GFCF indicators was preceded by the minimum values of the respective series, observed in March. Concerning the international trade of goods, imports and exports continued to register strong negative year-on-year nominal change rates in July, respectively -24.9% and -22.4% (-26.9% and -24.9% in June).
In August, the year-on-year monthly change rate of the Consumer Price Index was -1.3%, 0.2 p.p. more than in July. The core inflation index increased 0.2% (0.3 p.p. less than in the previous month). The prices of goods and of services continued to present different behaviours, with the first recording a year-on-year change rate of
-3.3% in August (0.4 p.p. more than in the previous month), while the latter increased 1.9% (0.2 p.p. less). The differential between the EA Harmonized Index of Consumer Prices (HICP) and the Portuguese HICP was 1.0 p.p in August (0.7 p.p. in July).