Brazil: Minister says economic crisis will not affect PAC (News Brief)

by Marli Moreira

(São Paulo, August 12, 2011)  – Minister of Planning, Miriam Belchior, says that the international economic crisis that affects the United States and some countries in Europe will not mean alterations in planned investments in the Accelerated Growth Program (“PAC”). Belchior declared that the government does not intend to make changes in decisions already made for PAC spending, “under any circumstances."

The PAC is the Brazilian government’s showcase development program that began during the Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva administration. The second stage, which continues under Dilma Rousseff, and runs to 2014, has a budget of R$ 955 billion, explained Belchior.

“These are fundamental investments. Among other things, they will help us ward off problems from the international economic crisis,” said Belchior, as she assured an audience at a construction conference in São Paulo that planned 2011 outlays for the low-income housing  program (“Minha Casa, Minha Vida”) of R$30 billion would occur.

Belchior declared that even though the PAC would move ahead unchanged the government was well aware of what was going on in the rest of the world. “We are concerned, but well prepared to deal with the situation, just as we did in 2008,” the minister said, referring to the US mortgage bubble of 2008. “We are closely following events on the international scene in order to determine whether or not other measures will be necessary.”

-  Agência Brasil August 12, 2011 under Creative Commons Licensing