OREANDA-NEWS. National Rating Agency has lowered its credit rating on Brazil to ‘iBBB’ with a Stable outlook. NRA’s first-time credit rating on Brazil was assigned on Jan 12, 2008 and re-affirmed at this level on Feb. 16, 2009, Mar. 14, 2010, May 5, 2011, Sep. 20, 2012, Sep. 24, 2013 and Aug. 27, 2015.

The downgrade was driven by Brazil’s economic recession that began as far back as late 2014 and intensified in 2015 (the country’s GDP goes down 4.5% in 2015), volatile government spendings and fiscal gap, as well as the rising public debt and inflation rate that goes up 4% over a year earlier, making the country’s Central Bank increase its interest rate to 14.25%. All the above factors reflect Brazil’s worsening economic recession.

In 2015, the government focused on measures intended to shore up the country’s fiscal situation by raising taxes and cutting spendings. Other measures included the local currency devaluation and interest rate increases. But external factors, such as the worsening of the global financial situation, weaker global economic growth and low commodity, including agricultural commodity, prices (Brazil is the world’s largest exported of coffee, sugar, meat, soybeans, maize and iron ore), combined with internal political developments, have hurt Brazil’s economic performance.

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