Official figures indicate that the Brazilian economy was 0.3 percent bigger in the second quarter of this year than a year earlier and 0.2 percent bigger than in the first quarter, Reuters reports.

The news agency says economists had forecast that second-quarter gross domestic product would be no greater than a year earlier and only 0.1 percent greater than in the preceding quarter.

The second consecutive quarter of GDP growth confirms that the momentum of the recovery from the worst recession Brazil has ever had is strengthening, Reuters quotes Brazilian Finance Minister Henrique Meirelles as saying.

Brazil’s economy has grown 1 percent in the first three months of 2017, after two consecutive years of negative growth, during which the Brazilian economy shrank by almost 8 percent.