Brazil posts third quarter growth, ending recession: govt

(MENAFN- AFP) Brazil's economy grew 0.1 percent in the third quarter compared with the second, crawling timidly out of recession, the government has said.

The manufacturing sector in particular, which had been hard hit by an economic slowdown, began to grow in the third quarter, the Brazilian Institute of Geography and Statistics said Thursday.

The services sector has also started to expand, it added.

Brazil's economy is the world's seventh largest. It entered recession half way through this year after posting two quarters of GDP decline.

However, compared with the same quarter of last year, GDP was still down 0.2 percent in the third quarter.

In late September Brazil's central bank lowered its GDP growth forecast for 2014 from 1.6 percent to 0.7 percent.