The Brazilian Gross Domestic Product (GDP) grew 1.9% in the first quarter of 2023 compared to the last quarter of last year, according to data released by the Brazilian Institute of Geography and Statistics (IBGE) this Thursday (1st).
GDP is the sum of all production in an economy during a period. It is the main indicator of a country's economic activity.
The result for the first quarter is the first calculated after President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva’s inauguration (Workers' Party), who promised in his campaign to make the economy grow.
According to the IBGE, in the comparison between the first quarter of 2022 and the first quarter of this year, GDP grew by 4%. In the accumulated result of the last four quarters, the growth is 3.3%.
Economic sectors
Analyzing the economic sectors separately, there was an increase in agriculture (21.6%) and services (0.6%) and stability in industry (-0.1%) in the first quarter of 2023.
In the comparison between this first period and the same period last year, agriculture grew 18.8% – a result that can be explained by the good performance of crop products. Industry grew by 1.9% and the service sector by 2.9%.
Investment
The investment rate in the first quarter of 2023 was 17.7% of GDP –below that observed in the same quarter of the previous year (18.4%). The savings rate stood at 18.1% in the quarter (compared to 17.4% in the same period of 2022).
