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LATIN AMERICA |
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Brazil Growing at Annual Rate of 5%,
Government Says
RIO DE JANEIRO – Brazil’s economy is growing
at an annual rate of 5 percent after being
in a recession until the first quarter of
this year, and it could end 2009 with growth
of 1 percent, Finance Minister Guido Mantega
said on Tuesday.
“The Brazilian economy was one of the last
to enter in the crisis and one of the first
to come out,” Mantega said in an address to
a group of Brazilian and Italian business
leaders.
“Brazil was strong going into the crisis
because it had an economy that had grown
with dynamism,” Mantega said, noting that
the economy barely contracted in the two
quarters beginning last October.
After growing about 1.9 percent in the
second quarter, compared to the first
quarter, growth in the third quarter of this
year should come in between 8 percent and 10
percent, the finance minister said.
The average growth rate in recent years was
more than 5 percent and the economy should
expand at close to 5 percent in 2010 after
recovering this year, Mantega said.
“Brazil has already started a new cycle of
expansion that is going to last in coming
years,” Mantega said, noting several
projects that should boost future growth.
He mentioned development of the massive oil
reserves discovered in Brazil’s Atlantic
waters, ongoing infrastructure and housing
investment, and projects for the 2014 soccer
World Cup and the 2016 Olympic Games, such
as the high-speed rail line between Rio de
Janeiro and Sao Paulo.
Foreign investors’ interest in Brazil is so
great that the government had to impose a
tax on inflows of foreign capital to prevent
the rise of the real against the dollar,
Mantega said. EFE
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