SAO PAULO, Jan 6 — Brazil’s economy is likely to grow 3 per cent in 2021 and less next year, the World Bank said yesterday, as stimulus fades and the country struggles to recover output lost in the pandemic.

The World Bank’s forecast for Brazil’s 2021 gross domestic product (GDP) is 0.8 percentage point higher than its June estimate, but not enough to offset a likely 4.5 per cent drop in 2020 amid the world’s worst Covid-19 death toll outside the United States.

Pressed by supporters outside the presidential palace yesterday asking for economic relief, Bolsonaro scowled.

"Brazil is broke, boss,” he said. "I can’t do anything.”

The president has been widely criticised for dismissing the dangers of the coronavirus and is now facing questions over delays to Brazil’s vaccine rollout. Nearly 200,000 Brazilians have died from Covid-19, yet a national immunisation programme is still at least three weeks away, even as inoculations have already begun in regional peers Chile, Mexico and Argentina.

Nonetheless, Bolsonaro’s support has held up well during the crisis, polls show, due in part to a stimulus package of roughly 400 billion reais (RM304 billion), including some 275 billion reais in cash transfers that saved millions from poverty.

As those programmes wind down, World Bank economists forecast an "uneven” recovery, with concerns about travel and restaurants hurting services, while industry and agriculture lead growth.

"The momentum (of recovery) is expected to decrease as the year progresses, partly due to the withdrawal of monetary and fiscal stimuli, reducing growth to 2.5 per cent in 2022,” it said. — Reuters