Brasília – Despite the difficulties for a growth recovery, 2016 has the potential to do it, said the Brazilian minister of Finance, Joaquim Levy. According to him, the government is moving in the right direction and the country has showed, in other occasions, that it has the ability to recover fast and deal with political and structural issues. Levy made the statements in a teleconference call with investors from bank Banco Brasil Plural this Thursday (3rd) afternoon. The audio, however, was only released this Friday (4th) by the press office of the Ministry of Finance.
To Levy, the majority of the movements seen in the currency exchange rate this year occurred because of short term uncertainties, a lot of them political ones. According to him, only the confrontation of these uncertainties can generate more confidence in the foreign investor. Without going into details, the minister said that investigations into corruption cases, despite provoking short-term impact, will bring benefits to the country in the long run.
Levy asked investors to think on a more structural level and emphasized that the government has been taking measures to improve competitiveness, the regulatory environment and investor certainty, such as the reform of the Tax on Circulation of Goods and Services (ICMS), of the Social Integration Program (PIS) and of the Contribution for the Financing of Social Security (Cofins).
*Translated by Sérgio Kakitani
