Brazil economy down 9.7% in second quarter

Brazil’s gross domestic product (GDP) was down 9.7 percent in the second quarter of the year from the quarter before. In current terms, the sum of all good and services produced in the country in the period added up to $302 billion. Compared to the second quarter of 2019, the GDP was down 11.4 percent.

The reductions in both comparisons were the sharpest in the time series initiated in 1996. There was also a decline in the value for the four-quarter period ending in June—2.2 percent—from the four quarters immediately preceding it.

The figures were released today (Sep. 1) by the government’s statistics agency IBGE.

In the first quarter of 2020, the GDP went down 5.9 percent from the same time span in 2019. In this comparison, a positive performance was reported for agriculture (1.6%), and declines for industry (-6.5%) and services (-5.9%).