Brazil’s gross domestic product fell by a record 4.5 per cent year-on-year in the third quarter, confirming fears that Latin America’s largest country is on track for its worst recession since the 1930s.

巴西第三季度国内生产总值(GDP)同比萎缩4.5%，这一创纪录的降幅证实了人们的担心：拉美最大国家将进入上世纪30年代以来最严重的经济衰退。

Lower commodity prices, fiscal contraction and the fading of a consumer credit boom have battered what was once one of the world’s fastest-growing economies.

大宗商品价格下滑、财政紧缩以及消费信贷繁荣的消退，沉重打击了曾经是世界上增长最快经济体之一的巴西。

Brazil has also taken a hit from the sweeping “Car Wash” investigation into corruption at Petrobras, the state-owned oil company, which has paralysed congress and the corporate sector.

针对国有的巴西国家石油公司(Petrobras)腐败行为的全面“洗车”调查，导致巴西国会和企业界陷入瘫痪，加剧了该国受到的冲击。

The scandal has also begun to spread to the financial services industry, with the arrest last week of billionaire banker André Esteves, chief executive of investment bank BTG Pactual.

这一丑闻还开始蔓延到金融服务业，上周亿万富翁银行家、投资银行BTG Pactual首席执行官安德烈埃斯特维斯(André Esteves)被捕。

Brazil’s statistics agency, the IBGE, said yesterday that GDP in the three months to September fell 1.7 per cent against a revised second quarter, worse than analysts’ expectations. The year-on-year fall was “the biggest since the start of the historical data series in 1996”, the IBGE said.

巴西统计机构IBGE昨日表示，相对于经修订的第二季度数据，截至9月的三个月里GDP环比萎缩1.7%，逊于分析师们的预期。IBGE承认，第三季度的同比降幅是“1996年开始统计历史数据系列以来最大的”。

The slowdown is generating a perfect storm of negative economic data. Unemployment rose to 7.9 per cent in September, up from 4.7 per cent in October last year, inflation is running at more than 10 per cent for the first time since 2002 and Brazil’s government budget deficit is now 9.5 per cent of GDP.

经济放缓正在酝酿一场不利经济数据的“完美风暴”。9月失业率升至7.9%，远高于去年10月的4.7%；通胀自2002年以来首次超过10%，同时巴西的政府预算赤字达到GDP的9.5%。

The poor third-quarter figures pile more pressure on Brazil’s left-leaning president, Dilma Rousseff, who is trying to implement fiscal austerity measures while battling low approval ratings and calls for her impeachment in Congress.

糟糕的第三季度经济数据加大了巴西立场左倾的总统迪尔玛圠广夫(Dilma Rousseff)所受的压力，她正在试图实施财政紧缩措施，同时艰难应对支持率低下以及国会内部弹劾她的呼声。

“It seems likely that GDP will fall by something like 3.5 per cent this year [rather than the 2.5 per cent we had expected],” Capital Economics, a London-based research house, said in a note.

“似乎很可能出现的情况是，今年的GDP将下降3.5%（而不是我们曾经预期的2.5%），”总部位于伦敦的研究机构凯投宏观(Capital Economics)在一份简报中表示。

Worryingly for Brazil’s policymakers, the declines were across the board, with agriculture contracting 2.4 per cent compared with the previous three months while industry fell 1.3 per cent and services dropped 1 per cent.

对巴西的政策制定者来说，令人担忧的是经济普遍下滑，第三季度农业环比萎缩2.4%，工业环比萎缩1.3%，服务业环比萎缩1%。

While Brazil’s problems are largely of its own making, it is not the only big emerging economy to suffer from the end of the commodities supercycle and slowing growth in China. Russia is experiencing its first recession since 2009 amid low oil prices and western sanctions — although officials say the economy will return to growth next year.

尽管巴西的问题在很大程度上是该国自己酿成的，但它并非受到大宗商品超级周期告终和中国增长放缓影响的唯一大型新兴经济体。在油价低迷和西方制裁的背景下，俄罗斯正在经历自2009年以来的首次衰退——尽管官员们表示，明年该国经济将恢复增长。