Brasília – Brazilian economic activity started the year with a decline. The non-seasonally adjusted Index of Economic Activity of the Central Bank (IBC-Br, acronym in Portuguese) posted a retraction of 0.4% in January over December, according to data published this Monday (18) by the Central Bank of Brazil (BC, acronym in Portuguese). Compared to January last year, there was a 0.79% growth (non-seasonally adjusted). Over the 12 months ending in January, the indicator posted a 1% growth.
IBC-Br is a way to assess Brazilian economic activity and helps BC to take decisions about the base interest rate. This indicator tries to predict Brazilian economic activity evolution by approximation. But the official indicator is still the Gross Domestic Product (GCP) calculated by Brazilian Institute of Geography and Statistics (IBGE, acronym in Portuguese).
Translated by Guilherme Miranda
