LatinNews Daily - 19 March 2024

*Brazil’s central bank (BCB) has released its latest economic activity index (IBC-Br), used as a proxy to anticipate the country’s GDP figures, which showed a monthly rise in activity of 0.60% in January, up 3.45% compared to January 2023. Monthly rises in the IBC-Br have been registered every month since November 2023, although this latest rise is 0.22 percentage points smaller than the monthly increase recorded in December. The accumulated economic activity in the 12 months until January 2024 saw an increase of 2.47% compared to the previous 12-month period. The modest monthly rise in January’s IBC-Br comes amid mixed results in economic activity indicators recently released by the national statistics institute (Ibge). The institute reported a rise in retail sales (2.5%) as well as slight monthly growth in the services sector (0.7%) in January. However, the Ibge’s figures showed a monthly slump in Brazil’s industrial production (-1.6%) in January.