Ivan Richard
Reporter - Agência Brasil

Brasília - In the opinion of Carlos Castelo Branco, an economist in charge of the Economic Policy Unit at the National Confederation of Industry (CNI), the outlook for the coming months is that there should be growth among small and medium-sized firms and a decline in activity among large firms. This tendency would be the oppose of what occurred in this year's first quarter.

"One should expect performance in the second half of the year to be more favorable for the group of small and medium-sized firms. For the large ones, since one of the chief problems they indicated is the exchange rate, a slower pace may begin to appear in consequence of the impact of the excessively appreciated exchange rate on their sales."

The industry survey was conducted by the CNI between March 28 and April 19 and involved 1264 small and medium-sized companies and 215 large ones from all over the country. Federations of industry in 21 states were also consulted.

Translation: David Silberstein