‘We don’t want Chinese women entering Brazil’, says Guedes

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Minister Paulo Guedes (Economy) defended this Friday (26) the opening of the economy, but said that the government will not “put the ‘Chinese’ to take our industry” and that Brazilian companies need to be strong to be competitive.

“The Brazilian business community has a ball of iron on its right leg, which are very high interest rates, a ball of iron on its left leg, which are very high taxes, you put a piano on its back, which are labor charges, and say: ‘run and the Chinese will get you'”, he said.

“We don’t want the ‘Chinese’ entering here breaking our factories, our industries, no way. What we want is a moderate thing.

Guedes once again called the IPI a “mass deindustrialization tax”. “It’s ridiculous, it’s pathetic, it’s wrong. It’s a tax paid before having income”, he criticized.

On Wednesday (24), the government published a decree shielding goods manufactured in the Manaus Free Trade Zone from IPI reduction, with the aim of unlocking a 35% cut in approximately 4,000 products manufactured in other regions of the country.

Guedes also stated that the Central Bank “sleeped a little” in the fight against inflation and only raised interest rates before the other monetary authorities because it was shaken by the government.

“Everyone slept at the wheel, our [Banco Central] he was the first to wake up, he dozed a little bit too, but he was the first to wake up because we shook. You are independent. Wake up, baby. You are independent. At the same time, he started to climb [os juros]”, said Guedes at an event with agribusiness entrepreneurs in Rio Grande do Sul.

In early August, the Copom (Monetary Policy Committee) raised the basic interest rate (Selic) by 0.5 percentage point, to 13.75% per year, and said it would assess the need for a new hike of a smaller magnitude. at the next meeting in September.

The head of the economic folder said he expects to see a reduction in the Selic rate shortly after the turn of the year. According to him, high interest rates are holding back the country’s growth in 2022. “Brazil would already be growing 4% this year. As interest rates are very high to curb inflation, it is growing ‘only’ 2.5%,” he said.

For 2023, Guedes’s expectation is that the advance will be greater. “Next year, as inflation is already falling this year and next year it falls again, interest starts to fall, [o Brasil] it will grow more than 2.5%, it will be 3%, it will be 3.5%. Let’s grow even more.”

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