IMF raises growth projection for Brazil in 2017 from 0.3% to 0.7%

The International Monetary Fund (IMF) has raised the growth projection for Brazil's Gross Domestic Product (GDP) in 2017, from 0.3% to 0.7%. In a report released today (Oct.10), IMF has also upgraded Latin America's growth projection from 1% to 1.2%.

The global growth projection for 2017 is now 3.6%, 0,1 percentage point above the previous forecast and well above 2016's global growth rate of 3.2% percent, which was the lowest since the global financial crisis, IMF stressed. 

The organism forecasts a 1.5% GDP growth for Brazil in 2018, while in Latin America as a whole the growth will hit 1.9% next year. The global growth projection for 2018 is 3.7%.

The IMF report highlights “the picture is very different from early last year, when the world economy faced faltering growth and financial market turbulence.”

Incomplete recovery

The document states, however, that the global economic recovery is still “incomplete." Part of the reason is nominal and real wage growth have remained low, even in advanced economies that have shown output growth. 

“This wage sluggishness follows many years during which median real incomes grew much more slowly than incomes at the top, or even stagnated," the report reads.

Plus, the document says, “emerging market and low-income commodity exporters, especially energy exporters, continue to face challenges as do several countries experiencing civil or political unrest, mostly in the Middle East, North and sub-Saharan Africa, and Latin America.”