[June 08, 2009] Brazil in recession, finance chief acknowledges Tweet Sao Paulo, Jun 8, 2009 (EFE via COMTEX) -- Brazil's GDP declined in the first quarter, pushing Latin America's biggest economy into a technical recession, Finance Minister Guido Mantega said Monday. "Obviously, the first quarter was bad. We will register negative growth, I don't know how much. They talk of 1 percent, of 2 percent and of 2.5 percent. I don't dare give numbers," he said at a Sao Paulo forum organized by Globonews television. The official figure on first-quarter gross domestic product is due to be released Tuesday by the IBGE statistics agency. Brazilian GDP dropped 3.6 percent in the final quarter of 2008 and negative growth for two consecutive quarters would meet the technical definition of a recession. Mantega stressed that the numbers from the first quarter represent a look "backward, through the rear-view mirror" and do not describe the current state of an economy he said "is showing signs of recovery." President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva's administration forecasts a return to growth in the third quarter and that Brazil's GDP will expand by 4 percent in the last three months of 2009. EFE mp/dr [ Back To TMCnet.com's Homepage ]