Economics
Brazil Industry Drops Most in 12 Years With December Surprise
- Data was worse than expected by all 39 economists surveyed
- Production of capital goods plunges 8.2% as investment falters
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Brazil’s 2015 industrial output contracted the most in at least 12 years after an unexpected drop in December that signaled an even deeper fourth quarter contraction for Latin America’s largest economy.
Production shrank 0.7 percent in December, recording its seventh straight monthly decline after a revised 2.3 percent drop in the previous month, the national statistics agency said Tuesday. That was worse than expected by all 39 economists surveyed by Bloomberg, whose median forecast was for output to remain flat. Industry contracted 8.3 percent throughout last year-- the most since the 2003 start of the agency’s data series.