Brazil Recovering

After a torrid couple of years, Brazil’s battered economy is expected to confirm signs of recovery this week, shifting the ground under the already unpredictable 2018 general elections, AFP reported. On Thursday, the IGBE state statistics office will release October unemployment figures. Go Associados consultants expect the seventh monthly fall to 12.1%, down from a record high 13.7% in the first quarter of this year. Then on Friday, the IBGE will announce GDP numbers for the third quarter. A Bloomberg survey of 31 economists predicts 0.3% growth over the previous quarter, the third consecutive quarterly increase in output. This would put some meat on the recovery from Brazil’s worst recession in history which saw GDP shrink 3.5% in 2015 and 3.6% in 2016. It also injects an intriguing new element into the run-up to the October 2018 presidential and legislative elections. The market consensus is for GDP to grow 0.73% this year and 2.58% in 2018, a more optimistic outlook than the previous survey in the Central Bank’s Focus magazine of 2.5% growth.