LatinNews Daily - 13 February 2025

*Brazil’s national statistics institute (Ibge) has released its latest figures for the country’s services sector, which showed that the monthly services volume in December 2024 was down 0.5% from the previous month, but was up 2.4% compared with the same month in 2023. Total annual services volume for 2024 was up 3.1% from 2023. Of the five categories of services measured, three registered a monthly drop in volume in December, with the greatest decreases registered in ‘other services’ (-4.2%), which includes activities such as auxiliary financial services. The Ibge attributed the decrease in services volume in December to the holidays at the end of the year. Meanwhile, the annual figures for the whole of 2024 showed that the ‘other services’ category was up 1.1% from 2023. All but one of the five categories registered an annual rise in services volume in 2024, with the greatest increases registered in professional, administrative & complementary services, and information & communication services; both categories were up 6.2%. The Ibge highlighted increases in areas such as digital advertising, e-commerce, and telecommunications, which helped drive the annual growth in these two categories. The only category to contract in 2024 was transport & postal services (-0.7%), which the Ibge suggests could have been a result of smaller harvests that reduced the demand for trucks to transport agricultural products.