Brazil: February’s Economic Activity Slows More Than Forecasted

Despite the 0.3 percent increase analysts were expecting for the world’s second largest emerging economy in February, the central bank’s IBC-Br economic activity index divulged on Wednesday showed only a 0.24 percent rise since January.

Brazil is struggling to keep a steady pace, while controlling inflation since the beginning of the year, as its stock market suffered an additional 2 percent decline on Tuesday. Major stock shares, such as Petrobras, Vale, and Itaú, performed even worse than the Bovespa index. The hope the central bank brought after revising its growth estimate for January (from 1.26 to 2.35 percent) suggests only moderate growth, at best, for the 2014 World Cup’s host country.

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The index is a seasonally adjusted indicator of farming, industry, and service sectors. In non-seasonally adjusted terms, last year it had experienced a growth rate of 0.71 percent over the same period.

Source: Reuters.