The new forecast for the Brazilian economic growth - made by the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and disclosed last week - corresponds exactly to what the majority of analysts in the country believe: Brazil will not have the strength to grow more than 2.5% next year. After publishing that in April the leap would be 4% (dropping to 3.2% in June), the international organization concluded that the increase will be around 1.5% less.Some years ago, we believed that the growth could be between 4% and 4.5 %, but today everyone is aware that this number is around 2.5%. And the IMF has finally recognized this, says Fernando Veloso, a researcher from the Applied Economics department of the Brazilian Institute of Economics of Fundação Getulio Vargas (FGV/IBRE), in an analysis published on the institute's website. One of the reasons for the forecast are the uncertainties created in the past three years due to issues involving macroeconomic and regulatory aspects.According to Veloso, soon after the economic crisis of 2008, the Brazilian government has expanded the credit of public banks, with contributions from the Treasury, mainly through the National Bank for Economic and Social Development (BNDES). Even with the slow-down in 2011 and 2012, this trend has continued and, instead of restricting the access to credit, the government has expanded it in an attempt to reverse the decline of growth. Instead of recognizing the difficulties and establishing a target below the previous one, the government sets goals, such as 2.3% of the GDP, for example, a very unlikely result for the economists. There is also little transparency regarding the inflation, which has persistently remained at the ceiling of the target, around 6%, explains Veloso.Please click here and read the review on IBRE's website (in Portuguese)