Brazil trims budget by $30 bn

Brasilia, Feb 10 (IANS/EFE) The Brazilian government has announced that it cut the annual budget by 50 billion reais ($30 billion), a figure that doubles the fiscal adjustment made in 2010.

Finance Minister Guido Mantega confirmed the budget cut and ruled out that the measure could lead the country into a recession, according to state-run news source Agencia Brasil.

“It’s not the old and traditional fiscal adjustment that was made in the past, which brought down the economy, which led to the recession and destroyed employment. We’re going to guarantee that sustainable growth has continuity,” the minister emphasised Wednesday.

Mantega recalled that for 2011 the official forecast for the growth of the gross domestic product is 5 percent.

“It’s a high level. We will continue pursuing growth,” he said, explaining that the greatest spending cut will be in the reduction of spending by the “public machinery”.

“That means that with fewer resources we’re going to carry out the same or more activities” without excluding social programs and “stimulating public and private investment”, Mantega said.

Meanwhile, Planning Minister Mirian Belchior said that the adjustment is a kind of “mantra” in the administration of President Dilma Rousseff and that the respective decree will be published next week in the official government gazette.

Without the adjustment, the budget approved for this year would have been 2.07 trillion reais ($1.24 trillion).

–IANS/EFE