São Paulo – The International Monetary Fund (IMF) improved Brazil’s growth prospects this year due to foreign trade performance but reduced the estimated increase for 2022. The IMF’s World Economic Outlook report, released this Tuesday (27), revealed the fund predicts a 5.3% growth in the Brazilian Gross Domestic Product (GDP) in 2021, 1.6% more than expected in April. However, for 2022 the growth projection was reduced by 0.7% to 1.9%.
The improvement in the country’s framework for this year helped raise the economic growth outlook for Latin America and the Caribbean to 5.8% in 2021, 1.2% more than in April. The forecast for the region next year, in turn, improved by just 0.1% to 3.2%. “The improved projection for Latin America and the Caribbean is mainly due to upward revisions in Brazil and Mexico,” the IMF stated in the report.
The IMF’s projection for the expansion of the Brazilian GDP this year was in line with the one made by the Ministry of Economy in mid-July. But for 2022, the ministry’s expectation is greater, at 2.51%. Meanwhile, the GDP growth estimate in the Focus survey carried out weekly by the Brazilian Central Bank with a hundred market analysts is 5.29% for 2021 and 2.1% for 2022.
The IMF drew attention to the possibility of a worsening of the pandemic and more challenging external financial conditions, which could be a severe setback for the upturn of emerging and developing markets, driving global growth to below the baseline forecast in the report. The report also emphasized the high inflation expected for this group of countries, related partly to the surge in food prices.
Translated by Elúsio Brasileiro
