Aécio Amado
Reporter - Agência Brasil

Rio - Commercial sales grew for the second straight month, after having racked up negative results in August (-0.13%) and September (-0.18%). The growth rate in November was 0.26%, 0.17 percentage points better than October's 0.09%.

The upswing in activity was led by the furniture, home appliances, vehicles and motorcyles, and autoparts sectors. According to the coordinator of the Services and Commerce division of the Brazilian Institute of Geography and Statistics (IBGE), Nilo Macedo, these areas are sensitive to the availability of credit.

The data released yesterday (17) by the IBGE on commercial sales volume in November also show that the supermarket and hypermarket sector was off 0.37%, after a 0.62% rise in October.

Translation: David Silberstein