Brazil could experience a flight of capital should the European sovereign-debt crisis worsen, and the country may use interest rates and US dollar reserves to combat contagion, an International Monetary Fund director said.
Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff made on Friday her strongest call yet for the central bank to continue cutting borrowing costs. At an event in Sao Paulo she said it was “inadmissible” for policy makers not to take into account the possibility of a recession and even a depression in the global economy.
Brazil’s Finance Minister Guido Mantega returned home early from the IMF/World Bank meetings in Washington this weekend, after a plunge in the Real extended the world’s biggest currency slump over the past month.
The Economist in its latest edition has a two-chapter piece on trade restrictions imposed by South America’s two biggest economies. The first (“Keep Out”) refers to Argentina and the second (“A self made siege’) to Brazil.
Brazil's central bank unexpectedly acted to halt the currency's slide on Thursday, highlighting growing concern among officials that the global financial crisis is damaging Brazil's economy and could cause a potentially destructive spurt in inflation.
Uruguayan president Jose Mujica admitted a certain ‘stinging feeling’ following the recent Brazilian decision to increase import taxes on vehicles by 30%, which could also have an impact on Mercosur partners.
Brazil on Thursday raised a tax on cars with a high content of imported components to protect jobs following a surge in shipments from China and elsewhere that has been fueled by a rally in the currency.
The International Monetary Fund hopes investments in European bonds by the fast-growing BRIC (Brazil, Russia, India and China) economies are not limited to less risky government bonds such as German or British bonds, IMF managing director Christine Lagarde said in an Italian daily on Wednesday.
Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa, which make up the so-called BRICS group, will meet in Washington next week to discuss how to help the European Union avert a full-blown financial crisis as Greece veers toward default on its debt, Brazilian Finance Minister Guido Mantega said Tuesday.
Brazil's economy expanded at a softer pace in the second quarter as a strong currency fueled a flood of cheap imports and industrial activity had its worst performance since the third quarter of 2009.