According to the INE, the sales index for the domestic market increased by 4.7 percentage points (p.p.) to 7.3% in February (with all major industrial groupings increasing against February 2017), while the external sales index slowed 0.4 p.p. to 5.9%.

The most significant contribution to the change in the total index was provided by capital goods (3.2 p.p.), as a result of an increase of 22.0% (25.0% in January).

Consumer goods, with growth of 6.7% (5.4% in the previous month) and intermediate goods, which increased by 4.9% (8.6% in January), contributed 3.4 p.p. to the total variation.

The energy grouping went from a year-on-year change of -12.6% in January to 0.5% in February, and excluding this grouping, the industrial turnover index grew by 8.9% (10.5% % in January).

In February, the monthly variation of the index was -1.7%, which compares with -4.0% in the same month of 2017.