Asher Levine – Reuters, 12/04/2012
Brazilian industrial output posted its first annual increase in more than a year in October as a tax break on autos helped support a nascent recovery in the country’s beleaguered manufacturing sector.
Output from Brazilian factories and mines expanded 2.3 percent in October from a year earlier, government statistics agency IBGE said on Tuesday, though less than the 2.5 percent rise forecast in a Reuters poll of 33 analysts. Industrial production dropped 3.6 percent on a year-over-year basis in September, IBGE said, revised from a 3.8 percent drop.
“There is a gradual recovery happening,” said Jankiel Santos, chief economist with BES Investimento in Sao Paulo. “Bit by bit we are getting more signals of it and today’s numbers confirm it.”
