巴西第三季度GDP同比萎縮4.5%

Brazil’s gross domestic product fell by a record 4.5 per cent year-on-year in the third quarter, confirming fears that Latin America’s largest country is on track for its worst recession since the 1930s.

巴西第三季度國內生產總值(GDP)同比萎縮4.5%，這一創紀錄的降幅證實了人們的擔心：拉美最大國家將進入上世紀30年代以來最嚴重的經濟衰退。

Lower commodity prices, fiscal contraction and the fading of a consumer credit boom have battered what was once one of the world’s fastest-growing economies.

大宗商品價格下滑、財政緊縮以及消費信貸繁榮的消退，沉重打擊了曾經是世界上增長最快經濟體之一的巴西。

Brazil has also taken a hit from the sweeping “Car Wash” investigation into corruption at Petrobras, the state-owned oil company, which has paralysed congress and the corporate sector.

針對國有的巴西國家石油公司(Petrobras)腐敗行爲的全面“洗車”調查，導致巴西國會和企業界陷入癱瘓，加劇了該國受到的衝擊。

The scandal has also begun to spread to the financial services industry, with the arrest last week of billionaire banker André Esteves, chief executive of investment bank BTG Pactual.

這一醜聞還開始蔓延到金融服務業，上週億萬富翁銀行家、投資銀行BTG Pactual首席執行官安德烈埃斯特維斯(André Esteves)被捕。

Brazil’s statistics agency, the IBGE, said yesterday that GDP in the three months to September fell 1.7 per cent against a revised second quarter, worse than analysts’ expectations. The year-on-year fall was “the biggest since the start of the historical data series in 1996”, the IBGE said.

巴西統計機構IBGE昨日表示，相對於經修訂的第二季度數據，截至9月的三個月裏GDP環比萎縮1.7%，遜於分析師們的預期。IBGE承認，第三季度的同比降幅是“1996年開始統計歷史數據系列以來最大的”。

The slowdown is generating a perfect storm of negative economic data. Unemployment rose to 7.9 per cent in September, up from 4.7 per cent in October last year, inflation is running at more than 10 per cent for the first time since 2002 and Brazil’s government budget deficit is now 9.5 per cent of GDP.

經濟放緩正在醞釀一場不利經濟數據的“完美風暴”。9月失業率升至7.9%，遠高於去年10月的4.7%；通脹自2002年以來首次超過10%，同時巴西的政府預算赤字達到GDP的9.5%。

The poor third-quarter figures pile more pressure on Brazil’s left-leaning president, Dilma Rousseff, who is trying to implement fiscal austerity measures while battling low approval ratings and calls for her impeachment in Congress.

糟糕的第三季度經濟數據加大了巴西立場左傾的總統迪爾瑪圠廣夫(Dilma Rousseff)所受的壓力，她正在試圖實施財政緊縮措施，同時艱難應對支持率低下以及國會內部彈劾她的呼聲。

“It seems likely that GDP will fall by something like 3.5 per cent this year [rather than the 2.5 per cent we had expected],” Capital Economics, a London-based research house, said in a note.

“似乎很可能出現的情況是，今年的GDP將下降3.5%（而不是我們曾經預期的2.5%），”總部位於倫敦的研究機構凱投宏觀(Capital Economics)在一份簡報中表示。

Worryingly for Brazil’s policymakers, the declines were across the board, with agriculture contracting 2.4 per cent compared with the previous three months while industry fell 1.3 per cent and services dropped 1 per cent.

對巴西的政策制定者來說，令人擔憂的是經濟普遍下滑，第三季度農業環比萎縮2.4%，工業環比萎縮1.3%，服務業環比萎縮1%。

While Brazil’s problems are largely of its own making, it is not the only big emerging economy to suffer from the end of the commodities supercycle and slowing growth in China. Russia is experiencing its first recession since 2009 amid low oil prices and western sanctions — although officials say the economy will return to growth next year.

儘管巴西的問題在很大程度上是該國自己釀成的，但它並非受到大宗商品超級週期告終和中國增長放緩影響的唯一大型新興經濟體。在油價低迷和西方制裁的背景下，俄羅斯正在經歷自2009年以來的首次衰退——儘管官員們表示，明年該國經濟將恢復增長。