RIO DE JANEIRO, BRAZIL – With no data to support what he says, President Jair Bolsonaro said on Saturday, September 19th, before an audience of evangelicals, that “on the economic front, Brazil was the best” during the novel coronavirus pandemic. But is it really true?
According to the most recent report by the OECD (Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development), the “club of wealthy countries” that the Bolsonaro government is so keen to join, Brazil actually performed worse than the rest of the world from an economic standpoint this year.
With the title “Coronavirus: Living with Uncertainty”, the OECD report released last Wednesday, September 16th, estimates that Brazil will close 2020 with a 6.5 percent drop in GDP, while the world will face a 4.5 percent drop on average.
In a comparison with 18 other countries, Brazil stands as the median of the sample, i.e., it is exactly in the middle of the ranking of estimated GDP variation in 2020 – with a better performance than nations like Argentina and Mexico, but worse than the United States and Turkey, for instance.
The only country in the sample that will record growth in 2020, albeit modest, is China, the place where the pandemic originated. The worst performer is South Africa.
In comparison with the average of the G20 countries, Brazil also loses: the estimate for the group that comprises the world’s eight largest economies, the European Union and eleven emerging nations is for a 4.1 percent drop in GDP (compared to the negative variation of 6.5 percent projected for Brazil).
Therefore, the figures refute President Bolsonaro. Brazil was not the country that performed the best in tackling the economic crisis triggered by the pandemic.