Brasília – The consolidated public sector – federal, state and county level governments and state-owned companies – posted a primary deficit of R$ 2.3 billion (US$ 716.9 million) in February. In the same month of 2014, it recorded a surplus of R$ 2.13 billion (US$ 663.9). The deficit comes after a surplus of R$ 21 billion (US$ 6.5 billion) in January that was driven by the states and counties. The data was released this Tuesday (31st) by the Brazilian Central Bank (BC).
Year-to-date, the public sector is still posting a surplus of R$ 18.763 billion (US$ 5.8 billion) due to the January results. The primary surplus is the saving of resources to pay for interest payments on debt, reducing the government debt on medium and long-term.
The February deficit was driven by the federal government. Last month, the Central Government (Treasury, Central Bank and Social Security) had a negative fiscal result of R$ 6.671 billion (US$ 2.07 billion). The state-owned companies, not including Petrobras e Eletrobras, also posted a deficit of R$ 1.047 billion (US$ 326.3 million). State and county-level governments again posted surplus of R$ 4.653 billion (US$ 1.450 billion) and R$ 547 million (US$ 170.5 million), respectively.
*Translated by Sérgio Kakitani
