Brasília – Economic activity in Brazil was up in January 2021 from December 2020, as per numbers made public this Monday (15) by the Brazilian Central Bank. This was the ninth straight month-on-month increment – the last time activity shrank was in March and April 2020.
The season-adjusted Central Bank’s Economic Activity Index (IBC-Br) was up 1.04% in January from December. Year-on-year in January, it was down 0.46% (non-adjusted, since equal months are being compared). In the 12 months through January, the IBC-Br was down 4.04%.
The IBC-Br ended January at 140.30 points, the highest score since 140.02 in February 2020, prior to the Covid-19 pandemic.
The IBC-Br tracks economic activity in Brazil. The official government indicator is the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) from the Brazilian Institute of Geography and Statistics (IBGE). Last year saw the GDP shrink by 4.1% to BRL 7.4 trillion. This was the sharpest drop since record-taking began in 1996.
Translated by Gabriel Pomerancblum
