MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency
IMF Assessment of Brazil Is ‘Wrong and Stupid’
Mantega suggested IMF boss to take some holidays The International Monetary Fund’s assessment that Brazil’s fiscal situation is worsening and putting at risk the government’s targets is “totally wrong” and “stupid,” Finance Minister Guido Mantega said.
The IMF, in a report on the global fiscal situation yesterday, said that “deterioration in Brazil’s fiscal accounts is particularly pronounced.” The government is expected to miss by a “wide margin” its 2011 target for a budget surplus before interest payments equal to 3 percent of gross domestic product, the IMF report said.
Mantega, speaking to reporters in Brasilia, said he tried unsuccessfully to call IMF Managing Director Dominique Strauss- Kahn this morning to discuss the report and will try reaching him again later.
“I think the managing director of the IMF must have gone on vacation and some of the orthodox, old men of the IMF got distracted and wrote this stupid thing about Brazil,” Mantega said. “It’s totally wrong.”
The central government’s budget surplus before interest payment widened more than expected in December, the finance ministry said today. The so-called primary surplus widened to 14.4 billion reais ($8.6 billion) last month, beating all seven estimates in a Bloomberg survey whose median forecast was for a 8.6 billion reais surplus.
The central government’s surplus was 2.16 percent of GDP last year, the ministry said in a report today. The target, which does not include contributions from state-run companies and local governments, was 2.15 percent.
Mantega said that Brazil will meet its fiscal targets this year after following the IMF’s advice and increasing spending during the global financial crisis to help Latin America’s largest economy exit recession.
The country’s deficit is one of the lowest in the world, and net debt will fall to 38 percent of GDP this year from 41 percent in 2010, he said.
Carlo Cottarelli, director of the IMF’s fiscal affairs department, told journalists yesterday that Brazil doesn’t face any “immediate risk” from a “relatively modest” increase in its deficit this year. Still, the country’s fiscal position could be stronger than it currently is, Cottarelli said.
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Read all comments“IMF Assessment of Brazil Is ‘Wrong and Stupid” Surprised Mr. Mantega? You can imagine, but the British, for example, still love some IMF arssesment from time to time, they just love it the rough way, all the way down or up :P Take a look a the UK, they are being flushed down the toilet.
Jan 28th, 2011 - 11:25 pm 0IMF is a joke. Why Brazil why? don't even bother with them. Also UN is a joke.
Jan 29th, 2011 - 08:16 am 0“The country’s deficit is one of the lowest in the world, and net debt will fall to 38 percent of GDP this year from 41 percent in 2010” .....I think this happens when the GDP goes up and the National Debt remains the same or increases at a slower rate. In Brasil's case, almost certainly it will be an increase in the National Debt.
Jan 29th, 2011 - 11:12 am 0If a nett deficit means you are spending more than you are earning then we need to know where all the money is going - for it sure as hell isn't going into Education or Infrastructure....... and this at a time when earning (GDP) is going up and up!
Somebody needs to ask where all the money is going!!!! (I think we really all know).
I've a feeling that huge increase in salaries and pensions for the Fat Cats, massive increase in pension commitment for the huge state sector as the demographic shifts ever upwards, and of course, the ever-expanding Bolsa Familia IN AN ELECTION YEAR might be a BIG part of the 'vote-buying' nett deficit losses .....
I think even I would vote for a party/government that kept giving me more money for doing very little! .... (Thinks “Hell, I could even become middle-class if I did 'a little bit on the side'”).
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