São Paulo – Joaquim Levy, Brazil’s Finance Minister, said this Thursday (22th) in Davos, Switzerland, that the economic measures taken this week by the government were aimed for the country to present a solid economic growth and that the government is not working only for the “very short-term”. According to information released by the blog of Palácio do Planalto (Seat of Government), he said, however, that the economy can be a little slow to react to the changes and that the year’s first quarter can present a fragile performance.
“We had a contraction, then it improved a little, and it’s very likely for us to continue to rise”, remarked Levy in a press conference. On Monday (19th), the minister announced a tax rate raise over credit, imports, fuels and the Tax on Manufactured Products (IPI, in the Portuguese acronym) for the cosmetics industry. The measures should result in an extra tax collection of R$ 20.4 billion (US$ 7.9 billion) this year.
Levy said in Davos that when the measures start to present results, which should not take long, the government will have gained the market’s trust again and will attract investments for the country. “We can sense already the disposition of people to take risks [to invest] on Brazil. This is the first impact”, he said.
*Translated by Sérgio Kakitani
