MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

Lula da Silva says Brazil has become financially “serious”

Brazil is well-prepared to weather a United States recession as diversified exports, thriving domestic markets and the elimination of foreign debt have bolstered its economy, President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva said Monday.

"We're going to transform this country into a great economy and a great nation; we've given a great step to become definitively a country which is taken seriously in international financial circles" Silva said on his weekly radio program. Brazil last week emerged as a net foreign creditor for the first time, and should now consider taking fresh loans to improve crumbling infrastructure and boost employment, Lula da Silva said in his weekly program. The region's largest economy is enjoying a prolonged boom, driven by high global demand for Brazilian minerals, agricultural products and manufactured goods plus a booming domestic demand. Petrobras, Brazil's oil corporation also recently discovered two huge deposits along the Atlantic coast which could turn the country into a net exporter of energy and a potential member of OPEC. "People are buying more, and exports are growing because we don't depend on the United States and Europe alone" Lula da Silva said. "We're also exporting to more countries around the world, and this leaves us calm in the face of an American crisis". "We have sufficient reserves to cover all our debts and we even have left a positive balance of 4 billion US dollars", said Lula da Silva, who later emphasized that the "prudent and high competence" with which his administration had managed public accounts was decisive in achieving this situation, "and obviously with a little help from God who never forgets Brazil". On Monday, he unveiled a multibillion-dollar anti-poverty initiative to provide jobs and infrastructure in Brazil's poorest regions. The plan would spend about 6.4 billion US dollars to target 24 million people, including one million small farmers, in nearly 1,000 towns across the country in 2008 alone.