A slowdown in consumption is linked to the slowdown in the labor and credit markets in the third quarter, in response to the impacts of restrictive monetary policy.
This is the assessment of the Economic Policy Secretariat of the Ministry of Finance when commenting on the GDP data released by the (Brazilian Institute of Geography and Statistics) this Thursday (4).
According to IBGE, household consumption slowed from 1.8% to 0.4% from the second to the third quarter, reflecting the decline in consumption of durable and non-durable goods and the loss of pace in purchases of semi-durable products and services, especially imported ones.
Previously, the increase recorded had been 0.4%. The result was slightly below market expectations, which was a variation of 0.2%.
The government explains that the services sector, which has a large impact on the economy, recorded a slowdown, from 0.3% to 0.1%, which contributed to the weak GDP performance in the 3rd quarter
In the Ministry of Finance’s assessment, despite the slowdown, the expectation continues to be positive growth in the margin in the fourth quarter, mainly reflecting a slight improvement in the performance of services.
In total, GDP in the third quarter totaled R$3.2 trillion, with R$2.7 trillion referring to value added to basic prices and R$449.3 billion to taxes on products net of subsidies.
Compared to the same period in 2024, GDP grew 1.8%. The expectation was for an increase of 1.7%.
The result is explained by the upward revision of the first two quarters of the year. While GDP in the first quarter went from 2.9% to 3.1%, GDP in the second went from 2.2% to 2.4%. Agriculture had a strong impact on the reviews.
