Brasília – The Central Bank of Brazil (BC)’s Monetary Policy Committee (COPOM)’s projects that Brazil’s Gross Domestic Product (GDP) should remain near-flat in Q2 this year. The information was available in the minutes of the latest meeting of the committee, which decided to keep the benchmark interest rate, known as SELIC, at 6.5% per annum for the tenth time in a row.
As per the COPOM’s minute, BC board concluded that “Brazilian economic recovery has stopped over the last quarters.” In Q1 this year, GDP was down 0.2%.
“This interruption is clear when we adopt a little bit longer perspective, which suggests it has occurred a change of the economic dynamic since Q2 2018. Under this perspective, the economic recovery, which was gradually happening until then, lost its momentum. After a small fallback in Q1 2019 due to this loss of momentum and some specific impacts, GDP is expected to show a near-flat performance in Q2,” COPOM’S minutes read.
Translated by Guilherme Miranda
