The Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) released a report recently indicating that Brazil is the country least affected by the worldwide economic crisis.

The OECD uses an index based on the number 100: countries with indexes below 100 that are contracting are considered countries in a slowdown, while countries with indexes below 100 that are growing are considered in recovery. Meanwhile, countries with indexes above 100 that are contracting are considered in decline.

Brazil is the only country that maintained a score above 100 for all of 2008. Scored at 104.1 in July, the number declined over the next few months but was still above 100 at 101.2 in November. As such, the Brazilian economy is considered “in decline,” but is doing better than other economies like Russia which hit 89.8 points in November, or China at 88.5 points in the same period.

Evidence of Brazil’s strong economy includes the booming export sector, which earned US$574 million in December alone, as well as exports of oil which reached 620,000 barrels a day in the same period.