Budget Min-Rates May Reach 11.5% By Year-End

Wires carrying comments from Brazil's Minister for Planning and Budget Simone Tebet on a range of topics. Says that "I believe we will vote [on] the budget guidelines bill by the end of the month, combined with a new fiscal framework." Adding that the "biggest challenge of the 2024 budget bill [...] is dealing with the short term."

• Tebet: "We have to pay attention to fiscal responsibility, without neglecting social needs, for interest rates to fall at least 50bps at each rate-setting meeting."Goes on to say rates may reach 11.5% by year-end.
• Tebet: "Fiscal framework, as it stands, provides [us] with fiscal room of BRL128bn for public policies...H223 inflation will be higher, that could open space of BRL28-32bn in 2024 conditional spending."
• Tebet: "I believe [the] Cabinet reshuffle will happen in August. [There] are fine adjustements that still need to be made."
• Tebet: "Zero primary deficit in 2024 is an audacious target, but credible and possible. It will require taxing certain types of income, such as interest on equity (JCP) and exclusive funds, but also reviewing expenses. If these revenue measures do not come to pass, other measures will come in place. If others do not come, my role is to control and cut public spending."
• Tebet hails from the centrist Brazilian Democratic Movement (MDB), and came into President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva's gov't as an outsider intended to soothe market concerns about a potential leftward swing under his administration that could see gov't spending rise or major tax hikes.