The positive performance of Brazilian mining, even with the ongoing pandemic, reflects expectations of improvement in the country’s economy, said Minister of Mines and Energy Bento Albuquerque on Thursday.
Addressing investors at an e-mineracao symposium, the minister said mineral production revenues in the first part of 2020 were 1% higher than in the first part of 2019. According to Bento Albuquerque, the surplus of minerals in the industry is $5.2 billion.
“Initial evidence of the functionality of the Brazilian economy was positive and showed a minimum of about 8% of GDP,” Albuquerque said.
Credit score firm Moody’s reduced Brazil’s economic outlook by 2020
“In the mining sector, the World Bank has estimated a 4.7% decline in commodity prices. Recent estimates imply a 17% decrease in mining investment over the next four years. In the first months of the pandemic, maximum positive forecasts were forecast for a recovery in the economy in the first quarter of 2021. Fortunately, none of this is happening.”
However, the country is still suffering from accumulation in cases of covid-19.
On Thursday evening, the federal Health Ministry reported that the country had passed two million confirmed cases and 76,000 deaths, ranked only behind United States.
Credit score firm Moody’s recently lowered Brazil’s economic outlook by 2020, warning that the country’s recovery was vulnerable to uncertainty about its pandemic ability.
Albuquerque, which tested positive for Covid-19 in March, cited government projects to increase mining output in the following months, such as providing more mining areas, minimizing bureaucracy, and expanding public and personal financing agreements for companies.
The debate intensified on the expansion of mining spaces in Brazil after the government released a questionable bill in February that would allow advertising mining on indigenous lands. Environmentalists say mining will drive deforestation.
In 2019, according to government statistics, illegal deforestation caused by gold mining in Brazilian forests broke a record: 10,500 hectares of forest fell, an accumulation of 23% in the last year.