SAO PAULO (Reuters) – Brazilian Finance Minister Fernando Haddad said on Wednesday that discussing the interest rate level, currently at a six-year high of 13.75%, is more important than debating inflation targets.
Speaking at an event hosted by BTG Pactual, he said that with the current level of real interest rates, discounting inflation, it was “difficult to navigate.”
His remarks come amid a feud between President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva and central bank chief Roberto Campos Neto, with the leftist leader saying the current rate levels hinder economic growth in the country and that inflation targets were too low.
Haddad had already said the National Monetary Council – the government’s top economic policy body – would not discuss changing inflation targets at its eagerly awaited monthly meeting on Thursday.
The minister on Wednesday also stressed that the country’s new fiscal framework should be presented by the new government in March, compared to the previous April deadline.
He added that tax reform, another of his priorities, is important not because of its immediate effects, but to dissipate legal tax risks in Brazil.
(Reporting by Marcela Ayres in Brasilia; Editing by Toby Chopra and Jonathan Oatis)
