SAO PAULO – Brazil’s gross domestic product inched up slightly between July and September and now has expanded for three consecutive quarters, the Brazilian Institute of Geography and Statistics (IBGE) said on Friday.

Latin America’s largest economy, which has started to turn the corner after two years of recession, grew 0.1 percent from the prior three-month period after expanding 1.3 percent in the first quarter and 0.7 percent in the second.

On an annual basis, Brazil’s economy grew 0.6 percent in the year’s first nine months and 1.4 percent in the third quarter.

Brazil’s third-quarter GDP growth was not higher due to the poor performance of the agricultural sector, which contracted 3 percent relative to the May-June period.

The industrial sector rose 0.8 percent and the services sector, which accounts for nearly 70 percent of Brazilian GDP, grew 0.6 percent.

The slight 0.1 percent growth in the third quarter fell short of analysts’ expectations but provides further evidence of a recovery in Brazil’s economy, which continues to be held back by high unemployment.

Brazil has technically emerged from a deep recession but growth over the past three quarters has not been sufficient to recover the seven percentage points lost between 2015 and 2016, when the country was mired in its worst recession in decades.

The South American country’s economy contracted 3.6 percent in 2016, remaining in recession for two consecutive years for the first time since the 1930s.

Brazil’s GDP shrank by 3.8 percent in 2015, its worst result in 25 years, after eking out just 0.1 percent growth in 2014.

Economists are forecasting 0.7 percent growth in 2017 and 2.6 percent growth in 2018.