Brazil posts sixth-highest growth among G20 economies
The 2.3 percent expansion of the Brazilian economy in 2025 places Brazil in sixth place in the G20 growth ranking, among the world’s largest economies.
The Brazilian government’s statistics agency IBGE announced on Tuesday (Mar. 3) that the country’s Gross Domestic Product (GDP) reached BRL 12.7 trillion last year.
GDP is the total value of goods and services produced in a country and serves as an indicator of economic performance. Last year, the agricultural sector was the main driver of Brazil’s GDP.
Shortly after IBGE released its results, the Ministry of Finance published a ranking of GDP performance among the 16 G20 economies that had already published consolidated data for 2025.
The ranking is led by India, which posted a 7.5 percent increase compared to 2024. Brazil stands just ahead of the United States, the world’s largest economy.
G20 GDP Growth Ranking (2025):
- India: 7.5%
- Indonesia: 5.1%
- China: 5.0%
- Saudi Arabia: 4.5%
- Turkey: 3.6%
- Brazil: 2.3%
- United States: 2.2%
- Canada: 1.7%
- European Union: 1.6%
- United Kingdom: 1.4%
- Japan: 1.1%
- South Korea: 1.0%
- France: 0.9%
- Italy: 0.7%
- Mexico: 0.6%
- Germany: 0.4%
Growth with slowdown
Brazil’s GDP expanded for the fifth consecutive year in 2025. However, the result points to a slowdown, that is, a loss of momentum. In 2024, growth had been 3.4 percent. Analysts at the Ministry of Finance attribute the slowdown to the high interest rate policy. The Central Bank kept the country’s benchmark Selic rate at 15 percent per year.
“This trend indicates that the contractionary monetary policy had a significant impact on economic activity, contributing to the closing of the output gap,” the study states.
In economic terms, the output gap is an indicator of the economy’s production capacity without generating inflationary pressure. The closing of the gap, cited in the ministry’s bulletin, indicates that high interest rates discouraged consumption enough to reduce price increases.
