P.R.’s economic activity index is flat year-over-year in August, but is driven by cement sales
The Economic Development Bank for Puerto Rico released the Economic Activity Index for the month of August 2018, which showed a 0.2 percent drop when compared to the same month last year, an no change when compared with July 2018.
The agency informed that the EAI reached a level of 121.9 in August of this year.
The EAI report showed that cement sales were the only component of the index that showed a rising trend in annual terms for August 2018.
Cement sales is one of four key indicators used to generate the EAI, which also includes nonfarm employment, gasoline sales and power consumption.
The average nonfarm wage employment for August 2018 was 859,900 people, an increase of 0.2 percent over July 2018 and a reduction of 2 percent compared to August 2017, the EAI showed.
For the month of August 2018, 1.2 million 94-pound bags of cement were sold in Puerto Rico, representing an increase of 0.6 percent over sales in the previous month and 23.4 percent over August 2017.
The preliminary estimate for gasoline consumption in August was 75.7 million gallons, down 9.2 percent compared to July 2018. The figure also represents a decrease of 4.9 percent, when compared to August 2017.
Electricity generation was 1.5 billion kWh in August 2018, down 2.2 percent against the figure observed in July 2018 and a 10.9 percent reduction compared to August 2017, the EDB’s report showed.
