Posted on 4/19/2022 8:08 PM / updated on 4/19/2022 8:24 PM
(Image credit: Edu Andrade/Ascom/ME)
In the middle of the election campaign, on a trip to the United States, Economy Minister Paulo Guedes assured that President Jair Bolsonaro (PL) will win the October elections. When quizzed on the issue during a virtual event hosted by the Center for Strategic & International Studies (CSIS), an American think tank, the head of the economics team downplayed the opinion polls that give former President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva an advantage. Silva (PT), stating that the difference between the two is shrinking and reality prevails.
“President Bolsonaro travels the country and is welcomed by ‘hundreds of millions’ of people. And can the other candidates take to the streets?” Guedes said this Tuesday (April 19) in Washington, where he has a busy agenda of meetings with investors in parallel with the annual spring meeting (in the Northern Hemisphere) of the Monetary Fund International (IMF). ) and the World Bank. The minister highlighted the decline in Lula’s advantage over Bolsonaro in the polls in recent months, assuring that this difference is “closer to reality”.
During the approximately 30minute talk, which was broadcast on CSIS networks, the minister reiterated that the current government is promoting the transition from a staterun economy to a market economy, “building wealth.” However, he avoided discussing the latest numbers, which show a new trend of stagnation in the middle of an election year, with doubledigit inflation and interest rates, high unemployment, indebted families and shrinking incomes.
According to the new IMF forecasts, Brazil’s gross domestic product is expected to grow by 0.8% instead of 0.3% as forecast in January, mainly due to higher commodity prices due to the war in Ukraine as Brazil is a major food exporter is.
Commenting on inflation, Guedes acknowledged that the phenomenon is global, stressing that since the Brazilian central bank started the monetary tightening cycle earlier, he estimates that “Brazil will control inflation ahead of the developed economies “.
Noise and Russia
The minister also reiterated during the speech that there is a lot of noise in democracy and misinformation about the Brazilian government that foreign companies sign concession contracts in Brazil “every week”. “We’ve raised $30 billion in signing premiums (in infrastructure) and another $200 billion in committed investments over the next 10 to 12 years,” he said.
The head of the economic team avoided criticizing Russia, acknowledging that while Brazil was the only BRICS country, a group of emerging economies consisting of Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa condemned the invasion of Ukraine by the two At the United Nations (UN), the Brazilian government disagrees with Moscow’s exclusion from the IMF when questioned on the matter. “Under the rules of the fund, a member country cannot be excluded,” he said.
Guedes also reiterated that the current moment is strategic for Brazil to join the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), the socalled Club of the Rich, and to advance the free trade agreement between the European Union and Mercosur. “Now is the perfect time because Brazil is a key player in Europe’s energy and food security agenda,” he said. “If we don’t do something now, we will be pushed in a different direction,” Guedes threatened after citing that several European economies, such as France and Belgium, are democracies “with sad histories” because they are “sinking”. Meanwhile, Brazil is seeking to build alliances with other partners, such as Middle East and Emerging 7 (E7) members, BRICS emerging countries, as well as Indonesia and Mexico.
gaffes
Citing the group of upandcoming E7s, Guedes made a false comparison. “These economies already have a GDP greater than that of the G7 (group of the world’s most developed economies Germany, Canada, the United States, France, Italy, Japan and the United Kingdom,” Guedes said, without commenting on the Calculation error to turn red.
According to the IMF, taking into account the GDP performance of these countries in 2021 in dollars, the sum of the GDP of the E7 is only 66% of the GDP of the G7: US$26.7 trillion versus US$40.4 trillion.
Another miscalculation by Guedes occurred when asked about the number of Japanese living in Brazil and he replied “several million”. According to the CIA, the population of Japanese and Brazilian descendants totaled 1.6 million people as of February 2019.
full program
Earlier, Guedes attended a meeting with North American business representatives who have trade and investment interests in Brazil. The meeting took place at the headquarters of the BrazilUnited States Business Council (Cebeu) in Washington. On the occasion, the minister presented updated data on the recovery process and spoke about the structural reform agenda in Brazil, according to the ministry’s press office.
“Guedes recalled the measures taken to protect the most vulnerable, with employment assistance programs and additional temporary income. He also pointed out that the progress of the infrastructure auctions and concessions program has attracted private investment to the country,” the ministry said in a statement.
“The North American participants reaffirmed their commitment and willingness to increase investment in Brazil, taking into account the improvements in the business environment promoted by the federal government,” said the luncheon with IMF Executive Director Afonso Bevilaqua.
The minister also had a meeting with Indonesian Finance Minister Sri Mulyani. Brazil is negotiating free trade deals with Indonesia and Vietnam, which could impact Brazil’s gross domestic product (GDP) by 25.7 billion BRL by 2040, according to studies by the Ministry of Economy’s Foreign Trade Secretariat (Secex).
The meeting of the G20, an association of the 19 largest economies in the world and the European Union, is scheduled for Wednesday (April 20). The ministerial meeting of the IMF and the World Bank will take place on Thursday (April 21). In addition to commitments to these two institutions, Minister Paulo Guedes’ agenda includes “meetings with private sector representatives to share data on the recovery of Brazil’s economy, Brazil’s accession process to the OECD and the progress of the structural reform agenda,” the Economics Note said .
“Minister Guedes also presents information on improvements in the business environment and outlines investment opportunities in the country,” the statement added.