BRASILIA (Reuters) – Brazil’s economy contracted by 9.7% in the second quarter of the year, the government statistics agency IBGE said on Tuesday, as the shuttering of businesses and activity following the coronavirus outbreak triggered the steepest quarterly drop on record.
The decline of Brazil’s gross domestic product (GDP) from the prior quarter was slightly more the median forecast in a Reuters poll of a 9.4% fall. The 11.4% year-on-year contraction was also a record, and more than the 10.7% decline economists had expected.
(Reporting by Jamie McGeever; Editing by Kevin Liffey)
