Rio, 9/30/2003 (Agência Brasil - ABr) - The government's statistical bureau (Instituto Brasileiro de Geografia e Estatística) (IBGE) has released a large volume (543 pages, plus thousands of archives on CD-Rom) entitled "XX Century Statistics." It is a treasure of interesting comparative information.

In 1901 Brazil's GDP was the equivalent of R$1 billion; today it is R$1 trillion. The population in 1901 was 17.4 million; today it is ten times bigger at 169.6 million.

The IBGE also shows the trajectory of Brazilian inflation. In the 1930s it was running at 6% a year. It rose sharply between 1990 and 1995, rising 764% during that period. But it fell once again, between 1995 and 2000, to an annual average of 8.6%.

Between 1901 and 2000, life expectancy for men in Brazil rose from 33.4 years to 64.8 years. (AB)