After a positive start in January, the pace of business creation declined in the following months, affecting most sectors, with Agriculture showing the sharpest decrease of the period (-37%), followed by Retail and Transport. Conversely, Construction and Information Technology bucked the negative trend, with growth of 7.7% and 8.4%, respectively, driven by real estate and IT activity.

Regarding the stability of the business sector, the data reveals that closures decreased by 24% through April, totalling 3,736 dissolutions, with the Retail sector showing the largest reduction in this indicator, although specific areas such as e-commerce and footwear manufacturing registered abnormal increases in dissolutions.

However, insolvencies reversed the trend of the previous year, increasing by 7.8% to 701 new proceedings, mainly affecting the Construction and textile industries, signalling new pockets of economic pressure in these sectors.