Higher than Expected Soybean Harvests Should Help Boost Brazil's Economy in 2010

Higher than expected Soybean production in Brazil, should provide a further boost to the country’s already strong economy in 2010. According to estimates from the country’s Agriculture Ministry soybean harvests in Brazil, the world’s second largest soybean producer are expected to beat previous expectations. Due to higher that expected rain levels, farmers will likely produce 66.7 million metric tons soybeans in 2010, an increase from a January estimate that output would total 65.2 million tons. In any case, soybean production in Brazil will beat 2009’s output, when soy harvests totaled 57.2 million tons.

After shrinking by 1% in the first three months of 2009, Brazil’s economy, the largest in Latin America, bounced back from the recession, and began reporting quarter on quarter growth by the second quarter of 2009. The country’s economy sped up in the second half of the year, and at a press conference on January 21, 2010 Brazil’s finance minister, Guido Mantega, said that he expects the country’s economy to grow by 5.2% in 2010.