Brasília – Brazil’s economic activity has started the year with growth. The season-adjusted Economic Activity Index (IBC-Br) showed a 0.24% growth in January from December, as per figures released this Thursday (26) by the Central Bank of Brazil (BC). Year-on-year, the growth reached 0.69% (as per non-season-adjusted figures). In the 12 months through January, the index posted a 0.86% growth.
IBC-Br is a way to evaluate Brazilian economic activity and helps BC take decisions over its base interest rate, known as Selic. The index was created by the BC to help forecast an approximated economic activity evolution. However, the official economic index is the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) calculated by the Brazilian Institute of Geography and Statistics (IBGE).
Under the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic, BC has revised down its GDP growth projection from 2.2% estimated in December to 0%. The GDP forecast ofthe Ministry of Economy went down from 2.1% to 0,02% for 2020, which means a stagnation.
Translated by Guilherme Miranda
