Agência Brasil
Rio de Janeiro – The drop in GDP of 1.5% registered in the third quarter, compared to the third quarter of 2002, is being blamed on the fact that there was very strong growth during the third quarter in 2002, with the GDP rising 2.9% at that time.
There is also the so-called "technical recession," that occurred between July and September of this year when industrial output fell 1.6%, agriculture was down 2.8% and services down 0.8%.
According to Roberto Olinto, at the statistical bureau (Instituto Brasileiro de Geografia e Estatística) (IBGE), poor performance in the building sector (down 10.9%) pulled the industrial sector downward. Family income also fell and there was no housing financing because of high interest rates.
The bright side in the industrial sector was in transformation (up 0.4%), public utilities (up 1.5%) and mining (up 2.6%).
In the services sector, for the first time Communications was down, 1%. Olinto explains that family income fell to the point where many fixed telephones were returned. International calls were down 10%, domestic calls down 1%.
