Brazil acts swiftly against financial crisis

BRAZIL: Brazil, Latin America's largest economy, has fallen into technical recession after registering two consecutive quarters of declining GDP.

Official statistics show that Brazil's GDP shrank 1.8 percent year-on-year in the first quarter and contracted 0.8 compared with the fourth.

The first-quarter result combined with the fourth quarter's 3.6 percent decline from the third quarter to push Brazil into the technical definition of a recession _ two consecutive quarters of falling GDP.

Brazil's unemployment rate, meanwhile, reached a two-year high of nine percent.

To actively manage the crisis, Brazil has undertaken a series of macro-control measures and adopted stimulus plans in addition to seeking expanded cooperation with other nations such as China.

Brazil's Central Bank has recently cut its basic annual interest rate (Selic) by one percentage point to 9.25 percent.

The rate was 13.75 percent in January.

To stop the sharp depreciation of the real, which has lost more than 30 percent against the U.S. dollar since the start of the crisis, the Central Bank sold millions of dollars in repurchase agreements or dollar swaps and increased the amount of money for lending.

Brasilia, Sunday, Xinhua