President Jair Bolsonaro (PL) defended, this Thursday (3), that Petrobras should reduce profits to avoid a sudden increase in fuel prices, in the face of the geopolitical crisis caused by the war in Ukraine.
“I have no way of interfering, nor will I interfere with Petrobras. Now Petrobras, in turn, knows its responsibility; and it knows what it has to do to collaborate so that the price of fuel here inside does not skyrocket”, declared the president, during their weekly live.
“We are seeing here in the media — and it is true — the profit that Petrobras is making. In a moment of crisis like this, I think that this profit, depending on the decision of the directors, the board and the president, could in this moment of crisis be lowered a little so we don’t suffer too much here”, he said.
On Wednesday (2), the president of Petrobras, General Joaquim Silva e Luna, told Reuters that the company is analyzing the upward pressure on the price of a barrel of oil, but for the moment there is no decision taken regarding adjustments in the prices of derivatives. .
According to him, after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, the oil market was “nervous” and with many “uncertainties”.
In addition to rising fuel prices, the government is concerned about the impacts of the conflict on fertilizer imports.
Russia is one of the main suppliers of these inputs to the country and the expectation is that exports will be harmed while the conflict lasts. Shipping carriers announced they would no longer source goods from Russia and economic sanctions applied by the US and allies could make financial transactions with companies in the country more difficult.
The Minister of Agriculture, Tereza Cristina, participated in the live alongside Bolsonaro. She declared that the country should not receive fertilizers from Russia as long as the war continues.
“What we have at the moment is a suspension of this trade because we do not have the means to pay, nor do we have ships, nor insurance for these ships, to carry these fertilizers from the Baltic and Black Seas”, declared the minister.
“While she [a guerra] is happening, the possibility of us receiving fertilizers from those two countries, both Belarus and Russia, is totally ruled out”.
She also stated again that one of the consequences of the current situation will be a rise in food prices.
Bolsonaro also said that the government will continue to reduce taxes, as happened with the IPI, and that he authorized the Minister of Economy, Paulo Guedes, to follow this policy.
“We are going to continue reducing taxes. It is an economic policy. Of course I gave the approval. And Minister Paulo Guedes decided to reduce the IPI and he has called this reduction in the IPI the new industrialization or reindustrialization of our Brazil”, said the president.
The government published a decree last week in which it reduced the rates of the Tax on Industrialized Products (IPI) by 25% for all products with the exception of tobacco, in an attempt to contain inflation and stimulate the industry.
with Reuters
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