SAO PAULO (Reuters) – Brazil’s Finance Minister Fernando Haddad said on Wednesday that the level of interest rates, now at a six-year high , was discussed. 75 percent, more important than debating the inflation target, reflecting the president’s dissatisfaction with the nation’s borrowing costs. , discounting inflation, which is “unruly.”
His remarks were made after President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva and Central Bank Governor Roberto Campos Neto Published in the spat between the two, the leftist leader said current levels of interest rates and inflation were holding back the country’s economic growth and that the inflation target was too low.
Haddad has said that the National Monetary Council – the government’s top economic policy body – will not discuss changing the inflation target at its long-awaited monthly meeting on Thursday.
The minister says the economy is in better shape today than it was a month ago, but admits expectations are polluted by what he calls “noise”. Under Lula, the country kept its benchmark interest rate unchanged and said any monetary easing would take longer to start given current conditions.
“I regret if the monetary authorities are affected by the noise,” Haddad said. “It’s not a role; you have to follow the ground rules. You have to see what’s really going on. You can’t make decisions based on the whims of stress that might happen.”
The minister also stressed on Wednesday that the new government should present the country’s new fiscal framework in March, compared to the previous April deadline.
He added that tax reform, another of his priorities, was important not because it would have an immediate impact, but to remove legal tax risks in Brazil.
