A primary surplus is achieved when government income is larger than outlays, without taking into consideration interest payments. The money is economized to pay the interest on the country’s debt. As interest payments on Brazil’s debt totaled 195,369,000,000 reais in 2010 (that is, 5.34% of GDP), there was a nominal deficit in the primary account of 93,673,000,000 reais (2.56% of GDP).
However, the government was able to subtract spending in its Accelerated Growth Program (PAC) from the 3.1% of GDP target.
According to the National Treasury, “extraordinary revenue” also made it possible for the government to close out the year so near its target. In December 2010, 6 billion reais in judicial deposits entered the Treasury. In September, a windfall of 31.9 billion reais from the Petrobras capitalization offering came in.
As a result, the so-called central government primary surplus reached 2.15% of GDP (78.7 billion reais), which was right on the government’s target (the “central government” is only the National Treasury, Social Security system and Central Bank).
The rest of the “consolidated public sector” primary surplus was made up by surpluses in state-run enterprises (surplus of 0.06% of GDP) and state and municipal governments (surplus of 0.56% of GDP).