BRASILIA (Reuters) – Brazil’s Economy Ministry on Thursday raised its forecast for economic growth this year due to stronger results that have been observed in monthly indicators.
Gross domestic product is expected to rise by 2% rather than 1.5% expected previously, as first reported by Reuters on Tuesday. The ministry maintained its 2023 GDP growth outlook at 2.5%.
The government’s estimates are more optimistic than those by market economists, who see economic growth of 1.59% this year and just 0.5% next year, according to a weekly central bank survey.
The Ministry’s Secretariat for Economic Policy also lowered its 2022 inflation forecast to 7.2% from 7.9% in May, incorporating the impact of measures passed in Congress to reduce taxes on key goods, such as fuel and energy.
Even so, the figure remains far from the official inflation target of 3.5% this year, with a margin of 1.5 percentage point up or down.
For 2023, the government now expects inflation at 4.5%, up from 3.6%, against a 3.25% official target with the same band of 1.5 percentage points.
(Reporting by Marcela Ayres; Editing by Hugh Lawson and Tomasz Janowski)
