Brazil’s gross domestic product fell by a record 4.5% year-on-year in the third quarter, confirming fears that Latin America’s largest country is on track for its worst recession since the Great Depression, NewsNow reported. Lower commodity prices, fiscal contraction and the fading of a consumer credit boom have battered what was once one of the world’s fastest-growing economies. Brazil has also taken a hit from the sweeping “Car Wash” investigation into corruption at Petrobras, the state-owned oil company, which has paralyzed congress and the corporate sector. The scandal has also begun to spread to the financial services industry, with the arrest last week of billionaire banker Andre Esteves, chief executive of investment bank BTG Pactual. Brazil’s statistics agency, the Brazilian Institute of Geography and Statistics, said on Tuesday that GDP in the three months to September fell 1.7% against a revised second quarter, worse than analysts’ expectations. The year-on-year fall was “the biggest since the start of the historical data series in 1996”, the IBGE said.
