SAO PAULO -- The Brazilian government says gross domestic product expanded 1 per cent in this year's first quarter compared to the last quarter of 2016.

The result published Thursday by the government's statistics bureau prompted President Michel Temer to tweet that the country's worst recession in decades is over.

The IBGE bureau said it's the first time in eight consecutive quarters that GDP has grown.

It said record grain harvests boosted the economy in the first three months of the year and that the period's GDP came to about $500 billion.