GDP falls 0.8%, but consumption and services ease recession
Folha de S. Paulo
The production of machines and equipment, the infrastructure works, the exports and the imports had falls worthy of an economic depression. Salaries, everyday shopping and basic services like health and education, on their turn, have lost the impetus of months ago, but resumed increasing.
The portray of the national production in the first quarter of the year, released yesterday by the IBGE (Brazilian Institute of Geography and Statistics), shows an immediate relief of the effects of the global crisis to most of the Brazilian population - after all, the services sector is the greatest employer, the public expenditure continues high and the consumption of families is responsible for nearly two-thirds of the economy.
Altogether, the GDP of the country in the first quarter had a 0.8% fall compared to the last quarter of last year, which had already accounted a loss of 3.6, the greatest fall since the Collor Plan seized the funds in savings accounts and in other bank deposits, in 1990. According to the most universally adopted rule of identification, the country went into recession with two consecutive quarters of fall in the GDP - the measure of the National income which comprises the industry, agriculture and cattle raising, commerce and services, private consumption, public expenditure, investments, exports and imports. On the periodic survey made by the Brazilian Central Bank, the estimates of the market pointed to GDP in the first quarter 2.2% smaller than the same period of 2008 - the fall measured by IBGE reached 1.8% - even so, the greatest fall since the end of 1998, when the country experienced the effects of the Russian crisis.
Seen closer, the figures show that the recession, in its most ordinary definition, has not affected everyone, not even the majority. It is enough to say the sector of services, which accounts for 60% of the GDP, has not fallen for two consecutive quarters: it increased 0.8% in the first quarter, after the 0.4% fall at the end of 2008.