Brazil's GDP grows in third quarter, ending the country's recession

The government says Brazil's economy has pulled out of the recession it slipped into after the second quarter of the year.

The IBGE statistics bureau said Friday that Brazil's gross domestic product grew 0.1 percent in the third quarter, ending the technical recession of the first half of the year.

A technical recession is defined as two consecutive quarters of contracting GDP.

In the first quarter of 2014, the economy contracted 0.2 percent while in the second quarter it dropped 0.6 percent.

The IBGE said that industrial output in the third quarter expanded 1.7 percent, while the service sector grew 0.5 percent. Agricultural output contracted 1.9 percent and family consumption fell 1.3 percent.