The speed and uniqueness of the crisis triggered by the SARS-CoV-2 outbreak in the global economy has made the use of high-frequency data very important, including for policy-making. Among the advantages of this type of information is its disclosure with a short lag vis-à-vis the reference period, thus enabling the timely identification of changes in economic activity.

According to the daily economic indicator (DEI) developed for Portugal, after very sharp falls in year-on-year terms between April and May, economic activity shows a globally upward trend since the beginning of June.

For more details, see Box 1 “A evolução da atividade económica em Portugal durante a pandemia numa frequência diária”, published in Banco de Portugal Economic Bulletin, October 2020 (in Portuguese only) and Lourenço and Rua (2020), “The DEI: tracking economic activity daily during the lockdown”, Banco de Portugal Working Paper 13.

Prepared by Nuno Lourenço and António Rua. The analyses, opinions and findings expressed above represent the views of the authors and not necessarily those of Banco de Portugal or the Eurosystem.

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