LatinNews Daily - 17 April 2024

*The Confederação Nacional da Indústria (CNI), a national lobby group for Brazil’s industrial sector, has released its latest economic projections, showing an overall GDP growth forecast of 2.4% for 2024 and a 2.1% annual growth rate for the industrial sector. This would mark an increase from the 1.6% growth which the national statistics institute (Ibge) registered for the industrial sector in 2023. According to the CNI, construction is forecast to grow by 2.0% and manufacturing by 1.7%, in contrast to last year when both categories registered annual contractions. The extractive industries category is expected to register a growth rate of 3.1% in 2024, which would mark slower growth compared to the 8.7% that Ibge registered for last year. In a press release, the CNI attributes its optimism for the industrial sector to the central bank (BCB)’s continued cycle of interest rate cuts. The CNI predicts that the country’s benchmark interest rate (Selic), currently set at 10.75%, will be lowered to 9.0% by the end of this year. However, according to latest figures from the Focus bulletin, a weekly survey of private sector economists and analysts consulted by the BCB, the Selic is expected to close the year at 9.13%. The annual GDP growth forecast in the Focus bulletin is also lower than the CNI’s figure, with a projection of 1.95% growth for 2024.