{"id":1196535,"date":"2020-07-17T16:50:12","date_gmt":"2020-07-17T21:50:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.mining.com\/?p=1030095"},"modified":"2020-07-17T16:50:12","modified_gmt":"2020-07-17T21:50:12","slug":"despite-brazils-covid-19-spike-minister-of-mines-optimistic","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/juniorminingnews.com\/?p=1196535","title":{"rendered":"Despite Brazil\u2019s covid-19 spike, Minister of Mines optimistic"},"content":{"rendered":"

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.<\/p>\n

Talking to investors on an e-mineracao<\/a> symposium, the minister said revenue from mineral production in H1 2020 was 1% higher than in the first half of 2019. According to Bento Albuquerque, the mineral surplus in the trade balance was $5.2 billion.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe first assessments for the performance of Brazilian economy were not at all optimistic and showed shrinkage of around 8% of GDP, Albuquerque said. <\/p>\n

\n
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Credit ratings agency Moody\u2019s recently lowered Brazil\u2019s 2020 economic outlook<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<\/figure>\n

“In the mineral sector, the World Bank estimated a 4.7% drop in commodity prices. Recent estimates point to a 17% drop in mining investments over the next 4 years. In the first months of the pandemic, the most optimistic forecasts projected a recovery in the economy only in the first quarter of 2021. Fortunately, we are not seeing any of this happen. \u201d<\/p>\n

The country, however, still fights to control the increase on covid-19 cases. <\/p>\n

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. <\/p>\n

Credit ratings agency Moody\u2019s<\/a> recently lowered Brazil\u2019s 2020 economic outlook, warning that the country\u2019s recovery was vulnerable to deepening uncertainty about its ability to control the pandemic.<\/p>\n

Albuquerque, who tested positive for covid-19 in March<\/a>, mentioned government initiatives to ramp up mining production in the following months, such as offering more areas for mining, minimizing bureaucracy and expanding public and private financing modalities for enterprises.<\/p>\n

Debate grew over expansion on mining areas in Brazil after the government unveiled a controversial bill in February that would allow commercial mining on protected indigenous lands<\/a>. Environmentalists say that mining will speed up deforestation.<\/p>\n

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 increase of 23% over the previous year.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Bento Albuquerque said revenue from mineral production in H1 2020 was 1% higher than in the first half of 2019.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":110,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"site-sidebar-layout":"default","site-content-layout":"","ast-site-content-layout":"","site-content-style":"default","site-sidebar-style":"default","ast-global-header-display":"","ast-banner-title-visibility":"","ast-main-header-display":"","ast-hfb-above-header-display":"","ast-hfb-below-header-display":"","ast-hfb-mobile-header-display":"","site-post-title":"","ast-breadcrumbs-content":"","ast-featured-img":"","footer-sml-layout":"","theme-transparent-header-meta":"","adv-header-id-meta":"","stick-header-meta":"","header-above-stick-meta":"","header-main-stick-meta":"","header-below-stick-meta":"","astra-migrate-meta-layouts":"default","ast-page-background-enabled":"default","ast-page-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"ast-content-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"footnotes":""},"categories":[2849,949,369],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/juniorminingnews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1196535"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/juniorminingnews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/juniorminingnews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/juniorminingnews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/110"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/juniorminingnews.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1196535"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/juniorminingnews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1196535\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1196536,"href":"https:\/\/juniorminingnews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1196535\/revisions\/1196536"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/juniorminingnews.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1196535"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/juniorminingnews.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1196535"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/juniorminingnews.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1196535"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}