LatinNews Daily - 08 March 2022

* The Confederação Nacional do Comércio de Bens, Serviços, e Turismo (CNC), a private sector lobby group in Brazil, has announced that the country closed 2021 with 2.4m active businesses, an increase of 204,400 compared with the end of 2020. Meanwhile, the volume of retail sales grew 4.5% in 2021 compared with 2020, despite high inflation, high interest rates, and a stagnant labour market. This strong recovery last year reflects increased mobility of consumers in Brazil as restrictions against the coronavirus (Covid-19) were lifted and vaccination advanced. According to the CNC, 92% of the businesses opened last year were micro- or small-sized enterprises. More generally, these smaller businesses represent 91.5% of active businesses in Brazilian retail. CNC economist Fabio Bentes is, however, cautious about the outlook for the retail sector and Brazilian businesses, which face renewed challenges: “Unlike 2020, when the sector was subjected to various restrictive measures to try and limit the worsening of the sanitary crisis, [now] the biggest obstacles to the vigorous recovery of activity amongst retail businesses are concentrated in the deterioration of economic conditions”, he said.

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