By Jamie McGeever
BRASILIA (Reuters) – Brazilian retail sales plunged at a record pace in April, official figures showed on Tuesday, as the first full month of social isolation and quarantine measures drove a decline in sales across all sectors of the economy.
Sales fell 16.8% from the previous month, statistics agency IBGE said, more than the 11.9% decline forecast in a Reuters poll of economists.
On an annual basis, sales fell 16.8% in April from the same month last year, also a record and more than the 13.6% slump anticipated in the Reuters poll.
It was only the third month since the series began in 2000 that sales fell in all eight sectors tracked by IBGE, and brought the year-to-date decline to 3.0%.
The level of retail sales is now its lowest since the series began in 2000, IBGE said, and down 22.7% from the peak in October 2014.
The sectors hardest hit were clothing and footwear, which saw a 60.6% fall in sales, books, magazines and newspapers, which fell 43.4%, and other personal and domestic goods, which fell 29.5% on the month, IBGE said.
Supermarket, food, drink and tobacco sales fell 11.8%, and pharmacy, medical and cosmetics sales fell 17%, IBGE said.
On a wider measure, including autos and construction materials, retail sales in Latin America’s largest economy fell 17.5% in April from the previous month, and 27.1% from a year earlier, IBGE said. Both were record declines.
(Reporting by Jamie McGeever; Editing by Bernadette Baum)
