Petrobras’ dividend fund would have no immediate effect on price, says economist

On a trip to Italy, the President of the Republic, Jair Bolsonaro (no party), made a series of statements about Petrobras that changed the price of its assets on the stock exchange yesterday, when they closed at an increase of more than 3%.

In addition to warning about a new price adjustment and having returned to talk about privatizing the state-owned company, Bolsonaro says he is studying with minister Paulo Guedes the creation of a dividend fund for the oil company to subsidize fuel prices.

The idea, for the chief economist of MB Associados), Sérgio Vale, could become a public policy. But it would not affect values ​​immediately.

“This possibility of putting Petrobras’ dividends as a subsidy to lower the price at this time when we are rising, will not cause the price to drop significantly, but it could become a public policy over the next few years,” he said in interview with CNN this Tuesday (2).

Privatization would take time

Regarding an eventual privatization of the state-owned company, Vale emphasizes that it would be difficult to materialize this project in an election year.

“Privatizing Petrobras has been of interest for a long time. Now, to imagine that we are going to have a privatization process for the main state-owned company in the country, which has great political difficulties behind it, is difficult. We are already going into the election year, I find it very difficult to move forward quickly in this process”, assessed the economist.

Regarding a new increase in gasoline and diesel prices, Vale said that it was already expected, due to the exchange rate and the price of oil.