Brazil's gross domestic product (GDP) grew 3.7 percent in 2006, higher than the 2.9 percent announced in February, said the Brazilian Institute of Geography and Statistics (IBGE) on Wednesday.

The IBGE revised the figure after it adjusted its methodology for measuring GDP growth. The new methodology takes into consideration 56 activities and 110 products, while the previous one used 43 activities and 80 products.

According to the new methodology, Brazil's GDP was estimated at 2.3 trillion reals (about 1.06 trillion U.S. dollars) in 2006, by using the average exchange rate at which the U.S. dollar was traded last year. It is the first time Brazil's GDP has hit the trillion-dollar mark.

The country's per capita GDP rose 2.3 percent in 2006 to 12,437 reals (around 5,700 dollars), and household consumption grew 4.3 percent, according to the IBGE.

The overall revision of the 2006 GDP exceeded all expectations as analysts had foreseen a maximum rise of 3.5 percent.

Last week, the IBGE released the revised GDP statistics for the 2000-2005 period, which added an average of 0.5 percentage point to each of the previous annual figures.

Source: Xinhua