Among the various sectors of economic activity, the Transport sector was one of those that most felt the negative effects of the COVID-19 pandemic, with a significant contraction of activity in 2020. Except for passenger transport by subway, which continued to decrease in 2021 (-2.4%, after -47.8% in 2020), in all other modes of transport the number of passengers grew, but still not reaching 2019 levels. Effectively in 2021, compared to 2019, the number of passengers transported registered the following variations: -31.2% by rail; -32.8% by road; -41.6% by inland waterway; and -57.4% by air.

Also, in all modes of transport, despite the increases compared to 2020, transport of goods was still below 2019 levels: -5.0% by road, -0.4% by rail; -2.6% by sea; and -7.3% by air.

Otherwise, Communications sector was strengthened from the COVID-19 pandemic, with continued increases in the main financial variables (turnover grew by 7.5% in 2021, after +9.5% in 2020; GVA grew even more in 2021 than in 2020: +9.4% after +3.3% in 2020). The number of internet accesses continued to increase (+3.7%, after +4.9% in 2020) with optical fiber growing at a remarkable pace (+12.8%; +14.1% in 2020).

The number of telephone accesses in the fixed service (+2.0%; +2.4% in 2020), the number of active mobile accesses and with actual use (+5.9%; -0.2% in 2020), voice traffic originating from the mobile network (both in number of calls: +6.5%; and in number of minutes: +4.6%) and also the number of subscribers to the subscription television service (+3,0%; +3.9% in 2020) continued to grow in 2021. Only postal traffic decreased in 2021 (-2.9%), but less intensely than in the previous year (-12.0%).

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