Brazil Economy Its Largest Since 2015, Central Bank Activity Index Shows

• Brazilian economic activity rose sharply in January, a central bank index showed on Monday, indicating that Latin America’s largest economy has not only recovered all its pandemic-related decline but is now back to the size it was over five years ago.
• The IBC-Br economic activity index, a leading indicator of gross domestic product, rose a seasonally adjusted 1.04% in December, more than double the 0.4% increase forecast in a Reuters poll of economists.
• The seasonally adjusted index in January stood at 140.3, higher than the 140.02 from February last year before the COVID-19 pandemic brought the economy to a standstill and triggered the biggest annual decline in activity since 1990. That is also the highest level since May 2015, according to central bank data.
• Despite the strong start, the outlook for this year remains uncertain, as a deadly second wave of the pandemic sweeps the country, unemployment remains high, and emergency government aid to millions of poor people approved by Congress last week will be only a fraction of last year’s payments.

(Source: Reuters)