Brazil’s GDP grew 2.7% in 2011, compared to what GDP was at the end of 2010. According to the government statistical bureau (IBGE), the country’s gross domestic product is now 4.143 trillion reais, around US$ 2.4 trillion.
The IBGE says that the farm sector did best in 2011, growing 3.9%. Manufacturing was up 1.6% and the services segment expanded 2.7%.
The report showed that in 2011 consumer spending rose 4.1%, government spending was up 1.9% and investment in fixed capital rose 4.7%.
To put 2011 GDP growth in perspective, it should be pointed out that there was a slowdown in the last quarter, when growth was only 0.3%. And there was very strong annual growth of 7.5% in 2010.
The Political Game
Last week, speaking at the swearing-in ceremony of the new minister of Fisheries, Marcelo Crivella, a senator from Rio de Janeiro, who replaced deputy Luiz Sergio, Brazilian president Dilma Rousseff emotionally thanked Luiz Sergio, who has been shuffled from the Ministry of Institutional Relations to Fisheries and now back to Congress, for his service and sacrifice.
“Many times, it is a fact, as we move along this winding road, we have to leave behind great helpers,” the president lamented.
Then Dilma went straight to the heart of the matter: that is, why Crivella of the PRB: “The building of political alliances is fundamental for Brazil to be administered and governed democratically by a government that represents the nation’s interests…. There is no contradiction in government based on coalition. The only contradiction lies in the minds of those who do not understand the need for an elected government to speak for all Brazilians.”
According to Dilma, the presence of Crivella in the cabinet is recognition of the PRB party, to which he belongs, as a part of the grand coalition that supports her administration. It is also a kind of homecoming for a political party that, during the Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva administration, was represented by Lula’s vice president, the late José Alencar, she pointed out.
Senator Marcelo Crivella is a nephew of Bishop Edir Macedo, the founder of one of Brazil’s largest Pentecostal Christian churches, the multinational Universal Church of the Kingdom of God (aka UCKG).
As a pastor of that church on a leave of absence, Crivella is one of the main leaders of the evangelical caucus in Congress.
