Rio de Janeiro – The Brazilian Gross Domestic Product (GDP), which is the sum of all the goods and services produced in the country, grew by 7.5% in 2010 compared with the previous year. According to the Brazilian Institute of Geography and Statistics (IBGE), which disclosed the rate today (3rd), this is the best result since 1986, when the economy also grew by 7.5%.
In current values, the GDP was 3.675 trillion Brazilian reals (US$ 2.212 trillion) last year. According to the IBGE, economic growth in 2010 benefited from the low basis of comparison recorded in the previous year, in which the GDP dropped by 0.6% due to the global financial crisis.
The growth seen last year was a result of the 6.7% value added to basic prices and the 12.5% tax increase.
The IBGE document also points out that with regard to production, the GDP of the industry, which rose by 10.1%, was the one that grew the most among the sector’s three components, driven by the good performance of mineral extraction (15.7%) and civil construction (11.6%).
The agricultural GDP went up by 6.5%. In this case, the result was influenced by increased production in various important cultures to Brazilian agriculture, the highlights being soy, which grew 20.2%, wheat (20.1%), coffee (17.6%), maize (9.4%), cane (5.7%) and orange (4.1%).
The services sector grew by 5.4% in 2010, driven by financial intermediation and insurance activities and by trade, both of which rose by 10.7%. According to the IBGE, the increase in employed population, total wages paid and credit was the factor that sustained the expansion of sales during the year. Furthermore, there was growth of 8.9% in transport, storage and postal services, and of 3.8% in information services.
With regard to demand, the IBGE recorded growth of 7% in family consumption, in the seventh consecutive year of increase; and a 3.3% increase in government consumption. Gross fixed capital formation grew by 21.8% and reached the highest fourth-quarter rate since records started being kept, in 1996.
In the foreign sector, there was growth in both exports (11.5%) and imports (36.2%).
The Gross Domestic Product represents the sum of all wealth produced in the country and is used for measuring the size of the national economy. To calculate the GDP, the IBGE uses the results of surveys conducted throughout the year by the institute itself, in fields such as agriculture, industry, civil construction and transport.
*Translated by Gabriel Pomerancblum
