Brazil’s GDP Grows by 0.2 Percent in Q2

By Lise Alves, Senior Contributing Reporter

SÃO PAULO, BRAZIL – Brazil’s Gross Domestic Product (GDP), closed the second quarter of 2017 up by 0.2 percent compared to the previous quarter, according to the IBGE (Brazilian Statistics Bureau). The latest GDP results, along with other positive economic results, such as the latest report showing declining unemployment, shows a slight recovery of the Brazilian economy.

The GDP growth, according to IBGE economists, was influenced by household consumption, which in this second quarter, registered the first increase in nine quarters. “Trade on the supply side and household consumption on the demand side were the main influences of the positive variation of 0.2 percent of GDP,” said Rebeca Palis, IBGE’s National Accounts coordinator.

When compared to the second quarter of 2016, the growth in GDP was of 0.3 percent. The accumulated GDP for the last four quarters, however remains negative, at 1.4 percent in relation to the immediately preceding four quarters.

The sector services registered a growth of 0.6 percent in its GDP when compared to the first quarter of 2017, while growth in industry fell by 0.5 percent and agriculture registered no variation (0.0 percent). In current values, GDP in the second quarter of 2017 reached R$1.639 trillion.

On Thursday, the IBGE released the latest unemployment rate for the second quarter, which showed a slight decrease of 0.8 percentage points from 13.6 percent in the mobile quarterly reading from February to April to 12.8 percent in the mobile quarter from May to July.

According to the Bureau, Brazil today has approximately 13.3 million unemployed persons and close to 90.7 employed individuals.