Brazil closes out 2017 with record trade surplus

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Europe

Brazil's road to economic recovery has passed another milestone with official data being released on Tuesday that shows the country finished 2017 with a record trade surplus that was 40.5 percent higher than in the previous year.

The 67 billion US dollars surplus was in line with market projections and within the 65 to 70 billion US dollars range forecast by the government.

Brazil's economy is projected to grow two percent this year, according to an annual report by the United Nations-backed Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (CEPAL) released last month.

That is unspectacular but solid – and far better than the 0.2 percent expected for 2017, or the two years of its worst-ever recession preceding that.

The government's own projections are slightly more optimistic: Three percent in 2018 and 1.1 percent in 2017.

Economy Minister Henrique Meirelles said last month that the improvement was owed to better "fiscal control, the approval of a freeze on public spending and reforms in general."

The country's key interest rate is now at a record low of seven percent, half of what it was in late 2016. Inflation is now considered a minimal risk.

Source(s): AFP