Brazilian President Lula will present his major investment plan to reactivate the economy this Friday in Rio de Janeiro. Antonio Lacerda (EFE)
In his first term as head of government in Brazil (2003-2010), the leftist Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, 77, was able to look forward to a generous tailwind in the economy thanks to the Chinese hunger for raw materials; Now the situation is very different, he is ruling a country that has experienced a decade of feeble GDP growth. Lula presented his recipe for reviving the economy, creating jobs and reducing inequality this Friday in Rio de Janeiro. The Growth Acceleration Plan (PAC) plans to invest $350,000 million in the coming years [unos 320.000 millones de euros] – public and private funds – for infrastructure, education, ecological transition, oil exploration, digitization and completion of unfinished works, among others.
Lula has taken the tone of big events in Rio’s imposing Municipal Theater: “Today my reign begins. So far we have only repaired what others have destroyed. The PAC marks the beginning of our third term. From now on ministers will run out of ideas, they have to stick to what has been decided here and work hard to implement it.”
Immediately after his election victory last October, Lula announced his intention to advance a major public-private investment plan to rouse the economy from the lethargy it has been mired in. And to select the specific projects to put the money into, he asked each of the country’s 27 governors to identify their priority projects. A strategy of seduction, Lula-style, seen as crucial to ironing out differences after a hard-fought victory split the country in half and left the left without a majority in Congress.
The governors most allied to Bolsonaro, such as that of São Paulo, declined an invitation to attend the event at a carioca theater.
The government accounts indicate that one-fifth of the funds will come from the federal budget; another fifth from state-owned companies; another fifth comes from the financing and the remaining two fifths are contributed by private initiatives. The President has encouraged China and the United States to invest more in Brazil and also had a message to local businessmen: “Don’t be afraid of businessmen, we don’t want an economic state, we want an incentive state.” [del crecimiento]“.
There is still hard work ahead of Lula, his party and his team, for example for them it is crucial that Congress finally approves the new budget framework in order to clean up the bills. If the targets are reached, 2.5 million direct and 1.5 million indirect jobs will be created.
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It seems logical that the event took place in Rio de Janeiro since this state is by far the one that will receive the most investments. The majority will flow into 16 new oil and gas production platforms. Although Lula has made the environment one of the pillars of his foreign policy, he has no intention of abandoning fossil fuel exploitation, and Petrobras is even considering expanding its operations in the Amazon. At the same time, the government wants to promote ecological change through investments. There are also those for urbanization of favelas, sanitation, schools, culture and for defense. It’s the technique Lula used in his first phase to allay the military’s suspicions. The second largest state that will attract the most investment is São Paulo, the richest state, which will focus funds mainly on transport infrastructure.
Lula’s government, focused on the lack of investment in the Bolsonaro years, is talking of 14,000 halted construction works across the country, which will be “absolute priority,” according to Civil House Minister Rui Costa, who will coordinate the execution of the ambitious program .
The festive atmosphere — “optimism is there,” said Vice President Geraldo Alckmin — was marred only by the booing of Workers’ Party (PT) militants at Rio de Janeiro governor Bolsonarista Cláudio Castro, who clashed with the mantra of the reconciliation and reconstruction, which Lula proclaims as soon as he has the opportunity. When he finally took the microphone, Lula, clearly irritated, ranted at his followers for a long time for not helping to build a “civilized country”.
This plan is an updated restatement of an investment plan from his previous terms, a methodology the PT leader has applied to his social and environmental policies in this third term.
The growth-acceleration plan became infamous over time because President Dilma Rousseff expanded it, exacerbating a financial crisis that culminated in a recession in 2014, and because some of the most iconic projects envisaged ended up being white elephants, symbols of corruption. They were built half because they were at the center of the corruption being investigated in the Lava Jato case, which was largely annulled by the Brazilian judiciary itself. While government on land, sea and air insists that this plan bear full environmental and financial responsibility, Lula wanted Rousseff, “the mother of the firstborn[investment plan]to present the new offspring publicly at his page is.” .
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