September 14, 2009

Brazil said Sunday it is spending up to 22 billion dollars in stimulus measures to counter the effects of the financial crisis, significantly less than other big economies."By the end of the year we should have spent between 1.0 and 1.5 percent of GDP," Finance Minister Guido Mantega said in an interview published in the Estado de Sao Paulo newspaper."The cost to us is extremely low, between 30 billion and 40 billion reais (16 billion and 22 billion dollars). It was cheap and effective," he said.

"China is going to spend a fortune, 13 percent of GDP. The United States will spend 5.6 percent of GDP, Mexico 4.7 percent, Argentina 3.9 percent," he said.Mantega's evaluation came after Brazil on Friday said it has emerged from a shallow recession brought on by the crisis.Official data showed second-quarter gross domestic product growth of 1.9 percent -- relatively weak but far better than the contractions of 3.4 percent in the last quarter of 2008 and of one-percent in the first quarter of this year.