São Paulo – The Brazilian consolidated public sector – including federal, state and municipal governments and state-owned companies – registered a primary surplus of R$ 91.306 billion (US$ 37.7 billion in current exchange rates) in 2013. The result corresponds to 1.9% of everything the country produces – the Gross Domestic Product (GDP). It is the lowest annual level registered in the Central Bank’s (BC) historic series, started in 2001. In 2012, the primary surplus reached R$ 104.951 billion (US$ 43.4 billion), corresponding to 2.39% of the GDP. The information was disclosed this Friday (31) by the BC.
Originally, the Brazilian Budget Directives Act (LDO) established a primary surplus target of 3.1% of the GDP for 2013. The government then changed mechanisms that allowed for expenses reduction of the Growth Acceleration Program (PAC), and missed revenues due to exonerations, and revised the target to 2.3% of the GDP (R$ 110.9 billion, or US$ 45.8 billion). Finally, at the end of last November, an amendment to the LDO was approved, exonerating the government from compensating the non-fulfillment of the state and municipal governments’ targets. The central government’s target alone, which corresponded to R$ 108.09 billion (US$ 44.6 billion), was reduced to R$ 73 billion (US$ 30.2 billion).
