Finance Minister Fernando Haddad said on Friday night (20) that the reduction in the freezing of funds in the 2024 Budget, announced today by the federal government, was possible because the country’s economy was “performing better”. 
The Ministry of Planning and Budget announced, in the Primary Revenue and Expenditure Assessment Report for the 4th Bimester, that the total containment of federal government funds decreased by R$ 1.7 billion in relation to the 3rd two-month period, rising from R$15 billion to R$13.3 billion.
“We are performing better. You will see the accounts on Monday [quando o governo irá detalhar os dados econômicos do quarto bimestre]”, said the minister in an interview after a lecture at the University of São Paulo (USP) on Friday night.
“We will see on Monday that the news is good,” the minister said. “Revenue continues to be in line with revenue expectations, and expenses are within the spending cap, as expected,” he said.
Haddad also stated that the Ministry of Finance has interacted with the Federal Court of Auditors (TCU) and is following the agency’s recommendations.
“We are doing exactly what was recommended. We are performing well. That is the truth,” he said.
“Everyone expected, at the beginning of the year, that the accounts would get out of control, but that didn’t happen. Despite the tax breaks, despite the lobbies, despite all of this, we are managing to replace what was removed from the Budget based on the current fiscal rules,” he added.
Adjustment without recession
The Finance Minister highlighted in his speech that the federal government is managing to make a fiscal adjustment without causing the country to enter a recession. According to Haddad, the way in which the adjustment has been made has allowed the country to grow without having to exceed its targets, which surprised the market.
“We had to design a readjustment that would not compromise growth. And the market expected that either we would not make the adjustment, and the accounts would go wrong, interest rates and the dollar would go up. Or we would make an adjustment, and we would have a recession. But Brazil, which the market expected to grow 0.8% last year, grew 2.9%. This year [2024]the market predicted 1.5%. And it will grow 3.2%”, he added.
