In Brazil, Lula’s fight against record interest rates

2023-04-28 17:37:37

By Michel Leclercq

Posted
on 04/28/2023 at 5:37 p.m.
,
Update on 04/28/2023 at 5:37 p.m.

Brazilian President Lula, (here on Tuesday visiting the Portuguese parliament in Lisbon), is engaged in a standoff with the Central Bank of Brazil to push it to lower its rates. PATRICIA DE MELO MOREIRA/AFP

DECRYPTION – The president, who wants to revive growth at all costs, regularly criticizes the policy of the Central Bank.

Rio de Janeiro

Traveling to Portugal this week, Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva resumed his attacks on his favorite target, the Central Bank, which maintains the highest real interest rates (excluding inflation) in the world. A crucial battle for the Brazilian president, who wants at all costs to revive sluggish growth to eradicate hunger and reindustrialize the leading economic power in Latin America. Throughout last year’s election campaign, the 77-year-old candidate promised that, if elected, every Brazilian could put a good barbecued steak back on their table, reviving memories of years of – relative – prosperity during his first two terms of office (2003-2010), driven by Chinese appetite for Brazilian minerals and soybeans.

But after four years of Jair Bolsonaro’s government and a Covid pandemic, how to eliminate hunger, invest in health, education, protection of the Amazon, infrastructure, in short, restore the country…

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