Rousseff unveils development plans

In a speech delivered during the first cabinet meeting of her second term of office, President Dilma Rousseff pledged a strategy aimed at stimulating foreign trade. According to Rousseff, the government is also planning on launching a program to reduce bureaucracy in the way the government relates to companies and individuals. These proposals had been announced by Development, Industry and Foreign Trade Minister Armando Monteiro Neto, upon his inauguration.

In spite of the adversities facing the global economy, Rousseff said that her administration will work to hold economic development steady in Brazil. She argued for the continuity of social policies, with changes in the economic arena, in an attempt to keep incomes on the rise and maintain employment. “We need fiscal rebalancing to bring back economic growth and ensure the generation of jobs and income,” she declared.

With regard to spending cuts and tax raises, the president said fiscal rebalance will be a goal gradually pursued, so that social initiatives are not affected. “These are steps towards fiscal balance which will allow the social programs to remain unaltered.”

The president also disclosed that the government is currently preparing a reform meant to combine the way two taxes on companies' revenues are collected—a demand from the industrial sector, which should have been submitted to Congress immediately after the elections, but was put off until 2015.

*Paulo Victor Chagas and Sabrina Craide contributed to this story.

Translated by Fabrício Ferreira