São Paulo (EFE)- The economy of brazil, the largest in Latin America, grew 0.8% in the first quarter of this year compared to the last three months of 2023, driven by the agricultural and services sectors, the Government reported this Tuesday.
With this result, the country’s gross domestic product (GDP) expanded at a rate of 2.5% in the last twelve months ended in March, according to data from the Brazilian Institute of Geography and Statistics (IBGE).
Relative to the first quarter of 2023, GDP grew by 2.5% between January and March of this year.
In addition, the Brazilian economy managed to reverse the decline of the last quarter of 2023, when it fell 0.1%, according to revised government data.
The quarterly result was mainly driven by the agricultural sector, which advanced 11.3%, and services, with an increase of 1.4%, boosted by retail trade. Meanwhile, the Brazilian industry registered a slight negative variation of 0.1%.
The largest Latin American economy
In the demand section, the GDP based its growth between January and March on domestic consumption (+1.5%) and gross fixed capital formation (+4.1%), with stable public spending (0. 0%) compared to the immediately preceding three months.
In the foreign sector, exports and imports rose by 0.2% and 6.5%, respectively, in the same comparison.
For this year, the Government expects a jump of 2.5% of GDP, a percentage higher than that predicted by the Central Bank (1.9%), the financial market (2.0%) and the International Monetary Fund (2.2%),
If this result is confirmed, the largest Latin American economy will suffer a new slowdown in 2024, after having expanded by 4.9% in 2021, 3.0% in 2022 and 2.9% in 2023.
The Brazilian president, the progressive Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, has assured, however, that the performance of the economy will surprise “once again” all analysts and will grow above what was recorded last year.
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