Brazil will grow more than China for the first time in 42 years, says Guedes

The Minister of Economy, Paulo Guedes, participated this Tuesday night (27) in the Flow Podcast, where he addressed topics such as GDP, spending ceiling, budget and emergency aid and Auxílio Brasil. The minister highlighted the growth of the Brazilian economy, especially when comparing it with other countries.

“It will be the first time in 42 years that Brazil will grow more than China”, he pointed out. “We are growing more than them, we have lower inflation than them. We had, now, this quarter, the biggest deflation in history, three months in a row,” she said.

Guedes reinforced about the country’s recovery “in V”, which was discredited when he made the projection. “They made catastrophic predictions,” he said. “As a result, Brazil grew 4.5% again, this year everyone said it would have a recession”, he argued. “This year, we are growing more than the United States, more than France, more than Germany. China, which was the great engine of growth in the world, this year, the World Bank forecast, is 2.8%. Because if Brazil does not grow at all by the end of the year, it has already grown by 2.8%.”

The growth, highlighted the minister, was despite some crises, among them the pandemic. “We were hit by two or three massive economic accidents. And yet, in the first quarter of 2020, Brazil was starting to take off. Until now, we had not been able to beat the collection at the beginning of 2020, which was a sign that the economy was already starting to take off. Our original plan was to grow 1% in the first year, carry out the renovations, 2% in the second year, accelerating, 3%, 3.5%. Brazil is already on the path to prosperity, recovering its growth momentum.”

Regarding the pandemic, Guedes said that the first year of the government had reforms, citing Social Security, the agreement with the European Union, the Free Trade Area of ​​Europe, “we were making trade agreements”. “Brazil was on the ground, we started to lift Brazil up. We suffered the water crisis, we suffered the crisis that occurred with the collapse of Argentina. At the same time, Brumadinho happened, which took us 0.3 to 0.4 [por cento] of GDP growth.”

And he highlighted the creation of emergency aid when the pandemic broke out in the country, which, according to him, were 68 million Brazilians protected. “We lost 1 million formal jobs in 60 days, it felt like the end of the world,” he recalled.

For Guedes, at the beginning of the pandemic, President Jair Bolsonaro may have had difficulty understanding the severity of the virus. “By his characteristic, he was characterized as a guy who was not sensitive to problems and such, maybe that’s why. The person was stabbed, then suddenly a virus appears and he says ‘hey, maybe it’s not as serious as the stab I got’.

The minister also commented on the criticism of President Jair Bolsonaro in the management of the pandemic. “People said that the president does not care about health. Of course he does, but there’s also the economic wave. There are two waves. If GDP drops by 10%, people will go hungry on the street. It will be an even greater tragedy. It’s one thing to be sick with resources, another thing to be sick without resources. It was going to be an even bigger drama. So he warned both of those things.”

Asked about his investments abroad, Guedes said he ended up “losing money”. “I spent years investing and, when I was going to reap, I came to this mission [de ministro]. I sold everything at investment price. The only thing I can say is that I’m glad I worked for 200 million people. I lost money, but no regrets for coming [para o ministério]. Mission Accomplished”.

Budget

Regarding the budget, Guedes said that it “is a law”, with the participation of the Executive and the Legislative. “Parliament is much better able to improve the Budget than I do. We have a vision very focused on the economy, Parliament enters the social sphere. We haven’t had a problem for 4 years, why are you saying there’s going to be a problem next year? It is the Executive and the Legislative who make the Budget, the Legislature corrects possible flaws. Take money from one place, put it in another, period.”

Spending ceiling

When talking about the spending cap, Guedes mentioned once again that the spending cap was poorly constructed and that the essence of policy is budget control. “The ceiling is to prevent the swelling of the public machine that previous governments did,” he said. But, he says, “they made the ceiling defective, the floor going up all the time, pressing us against the ceiling, with mandatory expenses.” “This command of the budget, which is the essence of politics, exercising politics is deciding where public resources go.”

The minister again pointed out that the ceiling is a “symbol”, to exemplify that news about “piercing the ceiling and destroying the fiscal framework” is “fake news”. “The ceiling is to not let the federal government swell. I’m not puffing up the federal government, I’m giving money to the Brazilian population, to save the Brazilian population. Do you know what happened to our spending? They went from 19% of GDP to 26.5%, to help the Brazilian population. In the following year, 18.7%, everything came back. So, we accomplished our mission, we saved the Brazilian population.”

jobs

The minister also spoke of “fake news” when referring to news about unemployment. According to him, a series of measures helped preserve 11 million jobs during the pandemic and create jobs. “From the bottom of July 2020, to date we have created 16 million new jobs, more than the United States, England and Germany combined. There were 8.8 million with a formal contract and 7.3 million informal jobs. In other words, we protected 27 million jobs in those two years.”

Ciro Gomes

At the end of the interview, Paulo Guedes commented on the presidential candidate Ciro Gomes (PDT). He spoke about his aggressive tone, but said Cito has “the indignation of the guy he wants to fix.” “I voted for him against FHC [Fernando Henrique Cardoso]”.

The minister criticized Ciro’s economic views. “He cannot make the mistake of thinking he is a great economist. That then he says some things full of good intentions, but he’s going to put his foot in the bucket fast.” However, he pointed out that the former governor of Ceará was highlighted in the area of ​​education in the northeastern state.