MARCH 2022 39 MONTHLY STATISTICAL BULLETIN A sharp increase in production and consumer prices Economic activity In the 4th quarter of 2021: • Gross Domestic Product (GDP) in Portugal registered a year-on-year rate of change of 5.8% in real terms (4.4% in the previous quarter); • The contribution of net external demand to the year-on-year rate of change in GDP was positive, contrary to the previous quarter, as a result of the acceleration in the volume of exports of goods and services. The contribution of domestic demand was also positive and slightly higher than that observed in the 3rd quarter; • There was a significant loss in terms of trade, more intense than in the two previous quarters, as a result of the pronounced growth of the import deflator, namely of energy goods and raw materials; • Compared to the 3rd quarter of 2021, GDP increased by 1.6% in volume (growth of 2.8% quarter-on-quarter in the previous quarter), with a decrease in the positive contribution of net external demand to its quarter-on-quarter rate of change. In 2021 as a whole: • GDP increased by 4.9% in volume, the highest rate since 1990, following the historic 8.4% decline in 2020, reflecting the markedly adverse effects of the COVID-19 pandemic on economic activity; • Domestic demand made an expressive positive contribution to the rate of change of GDP, after having been significantly negative in 2020, with a recovery in private consumption and investment; • The contribution of net external demand was much less negative, with significant growths in imports and exports of goods and services. The short-term indicators of economic activity from a production perspective, available for January 2022: • When compared with January 2021: » In nominal terms, they continue to point to high growth, more intense than in December, reflecting pronounced implicit price increases; In real terms, there was an increase in construction and a decrease in industry, which is largely the result of the strong contraction in energy and automobile production activities; • When compared with January 2020: » The production index in the industry showed a lower level; » The turnover indices in industry and services and the production index in construction registered higher levels. In February 2022: • The economic climate indicator, which summarises the balance of respondents to the qualitative business survey questions, increased, reaching a level similar to that observed in February 2020, after having shown irregular behaviour between July and January; • The manufacturing output price index presented a year-on-year rate of change of 16.3% (14.2% in the previous month), registering the highest growth of the current series; • The year-on-year rate of change in the Consumer Price Index was 4.2%, 0.9 percentage points (p.p.) higher than in the previous month, reaching the highest rate since October 2011; • Average electricity consumption on a working day registered a year-on-year rate of change of 1.6%, which compares with rates of -1.8% in December and -1.4% in January.
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