Brazilians Are Told Credit Access Is Back to Normal

An ATM machine in Brazil Credit availability in Brazil has returned to levels seen before the deepening of the global credit crisis in September. This according to Brazilian Central Bank President Henrique Meirelles, who announced the good news this Monday, February 10.

Speaking before a group of business leaders in Brazilian capital Brasí­lia, Meirelles said the improvement in credit supply came as a result of government initiatives to compensate for tight liquidity abroad.

"We are substituting foreign credit," said Meirelles. "In a second phase, it will be important for the costs of credit to decline." On an indexed scale of 100, Brazil's credit availability rose to 101.1 in January from a low of 92.7 in September, Meirelles said.

As part of those efforts since September, Meirelles revealed Brazil's central bank freed up 99.2 billion USD in banking reserve requirements to assure local credit supply.

In January alone, Brazil's central bank injected 61 billion into local markets via spot dollar sales and export credit auctions as a strategy to increase foreign currency liquidity.

In light of improvements noted so far, Meirelles on Monday urged business leaders present to maintain their investment plans.

"It's important that we be realistic, but excessively defensive behavior can exacerbate problems," he said.

According to recent market forecasts, Brazil's economy is projected to grow only about 1.7% this year after expanding by around 5% in 2008.

Mercopress

Tags:

You May Also Like

It’s Time Brazil Leave Its Pothole-Filling Policy and Strive for Greatness

Recently I visited the Cariri region, in the interior of Ceará State, to take ...

Brazil Reaffirms Commitment to Africa

Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva repeated his pledge that Brazil will install ...

Promising Land

Rancharia is 1 of 49 special projects in the state of Bahia supporting 2,250 ...

Dream on. This is not Brazil!

For dreamers, fantasists, fanatics or just bores, Brazil has become a blank page on ...

Instead of Waiting to Grow to Share Brazil Is Sharing to Grow, Says Lula

Conventional wisdom has it that you grow in order to distribute income. According to ...

All in a Brazilian Week

In Brazil, barely a day goes by without a new corruption scandal being reported ...

‘Let’s Not Fool Ourselves that We Are Rich,’ Says Brazil

Brazil’s Minister of Foreign Relations, Celso Amorim, demanded the country’s ambassadors to endeavor more ...

Brazilian Company Betting Arabs Will Need More of Its Iron

Brazilian mining company Samarco believes an expansion in the ironworks sector of the Arab ...

Brazil’s Company Big Plans to Push Its Coffee into the US, EU and Asia

B&D Food Corporation, a company that manufactures coffee products such as roasted ground, and ...

No More Rigid Coalitions: Brazilian Congress Ends Party Piggybacking

By a vote count of 329 to 142, Brazil’s Chamber of Deputies approved, Wednesday, ...