Economy minister says worst of crisis is over for Brazil

Brazilian Economy Minister Paulo Guedes said Wednesday that “the worst is over” for Latin America’s largest economy, as he expects his country to fare better than developed economies following the pandemic and conflict in Ukraine.

“The Brazilian economy is showing resilience. We have made more progress than developed countries after the pandemic. We have created between 200,000 and 300,000 formal jobs per month. Unemployment is falling, and we will have an 8% unemployment rate by the end of the year. Don’t panic; the worst is over,” Guedes said.

The official made the statement while attending an event organized by the investment fund XP Investimento in the city of Sao Paulo, Latin America’s main financial center.

The Brazilian minister maintained that his country was “doomed to growth,” although he acknowledged that the central bank’s decision to raise interest rates to 13.75 percent per year diminished those expectations.

“We are revising all our growth rates upward. We are at the beginning of a growth cycle, while advanced economies are at the end of that cycle,” he said.

Guedes also highlighted the privatization of electricity giant Eletrobras, the largest in Latin America, and pension reform, which was concretized in in 2019 in the first year of President Jair Bolsonaro’s administration.

“When the pandemic broke out, we put the brakes on reforms and resumed them last year,” he said, stressing that budget savings had been achieved by freezing public sector salaries.

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