Dilma Rousseff, the Chief of Staff of Brazilian president Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, in confident that Brazil has instruments to face the international financial crisis and should not only survive the meltdown but also leave the situation stronger.
"We are going to leave stronger than we came in. This time, we have instruments, weapons and, most of all, the route and the answer. We have built the government's capacity to react in the face of the crisis. A reaction that, firstly, is sovereign, as we do not have to accept conditions from any monetary fund," said Rousseff.
The minister talked at the opening of the National Meeting of Mayors Elected through the Worker's Party, the party to which Brazilian president Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva is affiliated.
According to Rousseff, the country currently has instruments to face the crisis, monetary policy, credit, financial reserves and solid public banks, which were not privatized.
"We have just terminated the vicious cycle that there was in Brazil. The crises that took place in the 1990s and early this decade, in 2001 and 2002, started abroad and contaminated Brazil through exchange. We were extremely fragile, we went broke and the IMF (International Monetary Fund) provided a recipe: reduce investment and social spending."
She pointed out that the measures announced on Thursday, December 11, offering tax breaks and credit for companies indebted abroad, were aimed at avoiding unemployment and at proceeding with the economic and social development of the country.
"We are not going to interrupt economic growth. If we do not manage, if we have no production, there will be unemployment. We must guarantee employment, which means maintaining the country and its different activities in operation," pointed out the Chief of Staff.
ABr
