The economic sentiment and the consumer confidence indicators recovered again in June, in the Euro Area (EA) and in the European Union (EU27).
In Portugal, the economic climate indicator, available until June, increased in the last two months, after registering in April the minimum value of the series. The economic activity indicator diminished in May, maintaining the negative trend started in the beginning of 2008. The private consumption indicator decreased less intensely in the last two months, reflecting in May a slight acceleration of non-durable consumption and a less intense reduction of durable consumption. In the same month, the GFCF indicator was less negative, lengthening the movement observed in April Concerning the international trade of goods, imports and exports continued to register strong negative year-on-year nominal growth rates in May, respectively -28.8% and -25.5% (-29.0% and -27.1%, in the same order, in April).
In June, the year-on-year monthly change rate of the Consumer Price Index was -1.6%, 0.4 p.p. less than in May. The core inflation index presented a year-on-year growth rate of just 0.3% (0.2 p.p. less than in the previous month). The dissimilar behaviour of the consumer prices of goods and of services should be noticed. While the first presented a change rate of -3.6% in June (0.7 p.p. less than in the previous month), the latter increased 1.9% (0.1 p.p. more than in May), reflecting a significant change in the relative prices of tradable when compared with non-tradable. The differential between the EA Harmonized Index of Consumer Prices (HICP) and the Portuguese HICP increase 0.3 p.p. in June, to 1.5 p.p..