Rio de Janeiro — Brazil’s recession hit the two-year mark, becoming the worst in the country’s history, after Latin America’s biggest economy registered an eighth consecutive quarter of shrinkage, GDP figures showed Tuesday. The government statistics office said the economy shrank 0.9% in the last three months of 2016. That meant an overall dip of 3.6% in 2016, following a 3.8% fall in 2015. This is the deepest decline since records began. Brazil used to be an emerging markets poster child under president Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva between 2003 and 2010, riding booming commodity prices and Chinese demand. It also won praise for far-reaching social policies aimed at lifting tens of millions of people from extreme poverty. But Brazil was unprepared for a slump in prices for its oil, soy, metals and other commodity exports, as well as political instability and a huge corruption scandal. Unemployment recently reached a record 12.6%, amounting to about 13-million people out of work. The c...
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