Indústria nacional
National industry grows 1.8% in January, the biggest increase since 2024
March 06, 2026 09h00 AM | Last Updated: March 08, 2026 02h01 AM
Industrial production advanced 1.8% from December 2025 to January 2026, eliminating part of the cumulative decrease of 2.5% from September to December 2025. This is the biggest increase since June 2024 (4.4%). Against January a year before, industry advanced 0.2% and interrupted three consecutive months with decrease in production: December (-0.1%), November (-1.4%) and October 2025 (-0.5%). The quarterly moving average in January was -0.1%. With these results, industial production is 1.8% above the pre-pandemic level (February 2020), but it is still 15.3% abelow the record level of May 2011. Data are from the Monthly Survey of Industry (PIM), released today (6) by the IBGE.
According to André Macedo, manager of PIM, the increase of 1.8% in January 2026 can be partially explained by the higher increase in December 2025 (-1.9%), the highest since March 2021 (-2.1%). “In that month, besides the lower dynamism that charactrizes the industrial sector, a higher frequency of collective vacations was observed. With the resumption of production activities in the beginning of the year, there has been recovery of part of this law.”
Macedo explains that the effects of the restrictive monetary policy remain, and are mainly evidenced in high interest rates. “The advance registered in January 2026 is relevant, but not enough to fully make up for the cumulative loss in the end of last year, from September and December, with a negative result of 0.8%”.
Increase of 6.2% in chemicals leads increase of industry in January
In January, there was a predominance of positive rates, with advances in four broad economic categories and in 19 of the 25 industrial activities surveyed. This effect had not been observed since June 2024, which recorded an increase in broad economic categories and in 23 of the 25 industrial activities.
The main positive influences came from the sector of chemicals (6.2%), moto vehicles, trailers and trunks (6.3%) and coke, petroleum products and biofuels (2.0%). in chemicals, the products that mostly influenced the month's result were fertilizers, herbicides and fungicides, all of which were linked to the agricultural sector. In the car sector, trucks and car pieces stood out.
Other positive contributions came from mining and quarrying industry (1.2%), basic metals (4.1%), electric machines, appliances and material (6.5%), beverages (4.1%), metal products (2.3%) and optical, electronic and computer equipment (3.3%).
Among the activities with a negative result, the most significant decrease was that of machinery and equipment (-6.7%), which recorded the second consecutive negative result, and a cumulative drop of 11.8%. “In this activity, the main losses came fro capital goods for industrial use, a group related to investments for expansion and modernization of industrial plants, and for agricultural use. It is worth mentining that the negative rate of this sector is related to the movement of increase of interest rates,” Macedo explains.
Among the broad economic categories, also from December, durable consumer goods (6.3%) recorded the highest negative rate in January 2026 and eliminated part of the cumulative decrease of 7.7% in the last two months of 2025. The producers of capital goods (2.0%), intermediate goods (1.7%) and semi-durable and non-durable consumer goods (1.2%) also recorded increase this month. The former interrupted tow consecutive months of decrease, with a cumulative loss of 7.9%; the latter increased again after a reduction of 3.8% in the last four months of 2025; and the latter eliminating the drop of 0.8% recorded in December 2025.
More about the survey
PIM Brazil has been producing short-term indicators since the 1970s regarding the behavior of the real product of mining and quarrying and manufacturing industries. March 2023 marked the beginning of the release of the new time series of monthly indexes of the industrial production, after a redesign to update the sample of activities, products and informants; create a new weighting structure of the indexes based on the most recent industrial statistics; update the base year of reference of the survey; and incorporate new Federation Units in the release of regional results of the survey. These methodological changes are required and they aim at incorporating the economic changes of the society.
The survey results can also be found on Sidra.
The next release of industrial production – Brazil, with results for February 2026, will be on April 2.
