Brazil’s national statistics institute, IBGE, reported that industrial production fell 0.6% in August from July in seasonally adjusted data, in its monthly physical production survey released on October 2. The decline erased July’s revised 0.1% increase. Compared with August 2025, production was 1.2% lower; July’s year-over-year decline had been 0.5%. These rates describe different comparisons: one is against the immediately preceding month, while the other compares with the same month a year earlier.

The monthly decrease reached all four major economic categories and 16 of the 25 industrial branches surveyed. The largest negative influences included tobacco products, down 23.4%; pharmaceutical chemicals and pharmaceuticals, down 5.5%; and extractive industries, down 0.7%. Tobacco ended a four-month run of growth, while pharmaceutical production gave back July’s 3.0% gain. Extractive industries recorded a fourth consecutive monthly decline and a cumulative loss of 4.7% over that run. These are movements in physical production indexes, not changes in companies’ sales revenue.

Other declines included computer, electronic and optical products, down 4.0%; apparel, down 3.3%; other transport equipment, down 2.9%; metal products, down 1.6%; and rubber and plastic products, down 1.8%. Petroleum, coal products and biofuels fell 0.4%. Among nine branches with increases, food products rose 1.0%, the largest positive influence and a second consecutive monthly gain. Miscellaneous products increased 8.4%, chemicals 0.9% and metallurgy 0.8%. The breakdown shows that the headline rate sits above markedly different production movements among industries.

All four major economic categories declined between July and August. Semi-durable and non-durable consumer goods fell 1.7%; durable consumer goods, 1.0%; capital goods, 0.6%; and intermediate goods, 0.2%. These groupings classify products by end use or role in production; they do not mean every item in a category moved in the same direction. The three-month moving average was 0.7% lower in August than in the previous month, remaining negative after declines in June and July. This smoother window is distinct from the monthly index and can reduce the prominence of one-month fluctuations.

The monthly contraction did not eliminate growth over longer comparison windows. Cumulative production from January through August was 0.8% above the same eight months of 2025. The index for the latest 12 months rose 0.6%, unchanged from July’s 0.6%. At the same time, the August year-over-year comparison was negative 1.2%. These values do not conflict: each uses a different period window or comparison base. A positive year-to-date result does not mean August output exceeded its level a year earlier.

IBGE’s survey is designed to provide short-term indicators of physical industrial production. Its methodology notes describe a sample of about 1,042 products, 8,600 companies and 12,500 local units, representing approximately 85% of industrial transformation value in the 2018–2019 annual industry surveys. Weights follow a fixed structure based on 2019 industrial value added. Seasonal adjustment uses X-13 ARIMA-SEATS and calendar-effect procedures. The index is therefore neither a census of every establishment nor a monetary valuation of industrial output.

IBGE says that corrections to raw responses can lead to revisions from the beginning of the previous year, and seasonally adjusted series may be revised historically with each release. August is thus an estimate in this publication vintage; later bulletins may update July and earlier months. The production index does not directly measure industrial employment, capacity utilization, sales, trade or prices. Its value is a comparable view of physical output direction and branch composition. Readers should keep the monthly movement, annual comparison and year-to-date change separate when interpreting the August decline.