Summary
In September, the economic sentiment and the consumer confidence indicators maintained the recovery observed in the last months in the Euro Area (EA) and in the European Union (EU27).
In Portugal, the economic climate indicator, available until September, increased significantly in the last five months, after the lowest value of the series recorded in April. The economic activity indicator recovered in August, suspending the negative trend observed since the beginning of 2008. The private consumption and GFCF indicators presented positive paths in the last months, after attaining in March the minimum values of the respective series. In fact, the private consumption indicator has been decreasing less intensely since April, reflecting in August a less negative contribution of the durable consumption, while the non-durable consumption component slightly decelerated again. In August, in line with the evolution depicted since April, the GFCF indicator moderated its declining trend, due to the less negative behaviour of all components, but especially of the investment in construction and in transport material. Concerning the international trade of goods, imports and exports continued to register strong negative year-on-year nominal change rates in August, respectively -21.8% and -19.7% (-23.9% and -22.2% in July).
In September, the year-on-year change rate of the Consumer Price Index was -1.6%, 0.3 p.p. less than in August, repeating the minimum change rate of the series observed in June. For the first time, the core inflation index presented a negative change rate of -0.2% (0.2% in the previous month). In September, the prices of goods and of services continued to present different behaviours, with the first recording a year-on-year reduction of -3.5% and the second a year-on-year growth of 1.4% (-3.3% and 1.9% in August, respectively). The differential between the EA Harmonized Index of Consumer Prices (HICP) and the Portuguese HICP increased to 1.5 p.p in September (1.0 p.p. in August).