The Brazilian president, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, said that the International Monetary Fund (IMF) will be surprised by the country’s economy because it will grow in a “solid” and reliable way and more than that entity has planned.
“Brazil will surprise people. All the claims that the IMF has made about the country’s GDP are going to be incorrect; they will not work because Brazil will grow in a solid, reliable way,” Lula said in his weekly program “Conversation with the President,” broadcast on social networks.
The president’s remarks come after the IMF praised the performance of the country’s economy and last week revised upward its predictions for Brazil’s GDP this year.
According to the IMF, Brazil’s economy will grow by 2.1% in 2023, 1.2 points more than calculated in the previous report in April. It expects an expansion of 1.2% in 2024, three tenths below the previous forecast.
According to Lula, the good results of the Brazilian economy reflect the optimism that the country is experiencing.
“We are going through a moment of recovered self-esteem. The country of hate is over; the country of lies is over,” he said.
Since the progressive leader assumed the presidency last January, he has insisted that Brazil has the conditions to grow above 2% per year, not only in 2023 but in the years to come.
Brazil’s economy, the largest in Latin America, grew by 1.9% in the first quarter of 2023 compared to the last three months of last year and by 4% compared to the same period in 2022, driven by the agricultural and services sectors.
