Looming Crisis: Brazil tumbles into recession

RIO DE JANEIRO: Brazil has slipped into recession, deepening the gloom in the world’s seventh largest economy that is already battered by falling commodity prices, political crisis and corruption scandals. In the second quarter of this year, gross domestic product fell 1.9%. GDP had already been down 0.7% in the first quarter, the government statistics agency said, revising that figure down further from the earlier estimate of minus 0.2%. YoY, the second quarter growth was down 2.6%. Brazil is now in its biggest contraction for six years and with the 2015 slump forecast to extend in milder form through 2016, economists believe the country is headed for the longest recession since 1931. However, President Dilma Rousseff dismissed talks of growing financial crisis, and said, “Brazil is a strong country that will grow, will overcome the difficulties which are momentary.

Published in The Express Tribune, August 30^th, 2015.

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