Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff has cut interest rates and taxes in an effort to bolster consumer spending, and the initiative has paid off for the local retail sector. For the fifth time in seven months, Brazilian retail sales grew in March, according to a national statistics agency based in Rio de Janeiro.

Economists had predicted an increase of 0.3 percent, and while that forecast was a bit high, sales were still up by 0.2 percent month-over-month. Compared with one year earlier, sales jumped 12.5 percent – the largest such leap since March 2010.

"Public banks last month said they would cut their lending rates by as much as 21 percent to help boost economic growth that slowed to 2.7 percent last year from 7.5 percent in 2010," Bloomberg Businessweek adds. "The Rousseff administration has also extended tax cuts for appliances to stimulate consumer spending and eliminated payroll taxes for industries including textiles and shoes."

The Brazilian economy is quickly become a global powerhouse and has been rated as the world's sixth-largest market, helping local retailers come out of the recession in a strong place.