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Brazil slashes 2019 GDP growth forecast to 1.6 pct

RIO DE JANEIRO
2019-05-23 10:54

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RIO DE JANEIRO, May 22 (Xinhua) -- Brazilian Ministry of Economy announced Wednesday a reduction in the gross domestic product (GDP) growth projection for 2019 from 2.2 to 1.6 percent.

Earlier this week, according to the weekly report Focus Bulletin issued every Monday by the Central Bank of Brazil, economists from financial institutions lowered GDP growth estimate to 1.24 percent for this year.

The adjustment makes it even harder for the government to manage to fulfill the fiscal target set for this year, which is for a primary deficit of 139 billion reals (34.4 billion U.S. dollars).

Despite the lower estimates, this time the government did not announce other budget cuts or curtailments, preferring instead to resort to contingency fund money to try to balance fiscal accounts.

The move is likely due to the extremely poor acceptance to the most recent announcement of this kind.

The Bolsonaro administration recently announced a cut of about a third of the discretionary budget for the federal universities and schools in Brazil, and also cut by half the resources sent to states and town governments to help finance basic education.
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