Brazil will overtake France to become the world’s fifth-largest economy in less than four years, the country’s Finance Minister Guido Mantega said Tuesday.
“The International Monetary Fund says Brazil will be the world’s fifth-largest economy by 2015, but I think that it will happen earlier,” he said.
He made the forecast after the Center for Economics and Business Research (CEBR) said Monday that Brazil will overtake Britain as the world’s sixth-largest economy in 2011.
Brazil registered a 7.5-percent gross domestic product (GDP) growth last year and was the world’s seventh-largest economy, after the United States, China, Japan, Germany, France and Britain.
Mantega said Brazil’s GDP is growing twice as fast as those of European countries, and thus it is natural that it will manage to overtake Britain, France, and maybe even Germany in the near future.
Mantega predicted that the Brazilian economy would grow 3 to 3.5 percent this year, and may even see growth of 4 to 5 percent in 2012.
Brazil is on the right path, he said, highlighting the country’s recent accomplishments, such as its high job generation and stable inflation rate.
“We will grow more in 2012 than in 2011, the exchange rate will be better and credit will be cheaper,” Mantega said.
However, Mantega warned that Brazil’s living standards are still below those of developed countries, and it would take years for it to reach the per capita income levels registered in developed nations.
