Brazil economy grew 2.9pc in 2022

Brasília: Brazil's economy, the largest in Latin America, grew 2.9 percent in 2022, according to data released Thursday by the Brazilian Institute of Statistics.

That figure includes a 0.2 percent contraction in the fourth quarter of last year, and comes after the country´s GDP grew five percent in 2021, according to revised figures.

Economic growth in 2022, the last year of far-right former president Jair Bolsonaro´s term, was in line with market expectations.

In January 2023, Bolsonaro was replaced by leftist President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva.

Growth was mainly fueled by the services sector, which climbed 4.2 percent, with industry up 1.6 percent and the agricultural sector contracting 1.7 percent, according to the institute´s data.

"Of this 2.9 percent, services were responsible for 2.4 percentage points," said Rebeca Palis, the national accounts coordinator at the IBGE institute.

"As well as being the sector with the greatest weight, it was the one that grew the most, which demonstrates its large contribution."

The sector was boosted by the return of tourism, which had been badly hit by the pandemic.

Agriculture, which is often a major driver of the Brazilian economy, was dragged down by an 11.4 percent crash in its soybean production -- one of Brazil´s main exports -- due to "adverse climatic effects" including widespread drought in the south of the country, added Palis.