JPMorgan, Barclays cut Brazil’s growth forecast this year

Bloomberg

JPMorgan Chase & Co and Barclays became the latest financial institutions to lower their estimates for Brazil’s economic growth this year, on the back of weak activity data and increased political uncertainty.
They joined Itau Unibanco SA, Latin America’s largest bank by market value, which remains the most pessimistic of the three after cutting its 2019 growth forecast for Brazil to 1.3 percent.
“Although we continue to expect pension reform to be approved eventually later this year, we see growing risks of delays and furt-
her dilution,” Barclays’s economist Roberto Secemski wrote in a report. “As such, the expected acceleration in investment could be even more back-loaded, with a positive effect on employment and income growth becoming more visible only later this year and in 2020.”