São Paulo – Plummeting investment and consumption by families and rising prices are some of the reasons Brazil’s Gross Domestic Product (GDP) should shrink 3.5% this year from the last one. So says a report released this Thursday (17) by the United Nations’ Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLAC). It says the Brazilian GDP should contract again in 2016, by 2%, due to uncertainty in politics and regarding the federal government’s fiscal adjustment program, as well as to exchange rate volatility.
Aside from the negative effects on its own economy, ECLAC warns that Brazil will also weigh down on Latin America as a whole in 2015, while not disregarding the impact of the global economic scenario on the region’s growth. It believes Latin American GDP will shrink 0.4% this year and grow 0.2% in 2016.
*Translated by Gabriel Pomerancblum
