Brazil's economy keeps growing in first quarter

RIO DE JANEIRO: Brazil's economy maintained its slow but steady climb out of recession with 0.4 percent growth in the first quarter of 2018, the state statistics office said Wednesday.

This marked a fifth consecutive quarterly expansion of GDP and was above the 0.3 percent growth forecasted by a panel of 24 analysts in the Valor financial newspaper.

Over 12 months, growth in Latin America's biggest economy is now 1.3 percent, the IBGE office said.

The commodities powerhouse, which has been hit hard by corruption scandals and the fall of international oil prices, grew one percent in 2017, finally ending its worst recession on record. The economy shrank 3.5 percent in 2016 and again in 2015.