Economy Minister: Brazil will help neighbors after completing domestic vaccination

RIO DE JANEIRO, BRAZIL – In an online event promoted by the Atlantic Council organization, the Minister said that the significance of mass vaccination was a key topic in the International Monetary Fund (IMF) meetings he attended in Washington, U.S..

He also said that uneven recovery, also encompassing access to vaccines, was another topic of concern.

“In my address I said that Brazil will start vaccinating our neighbors, we will help our neighbors, as soon as our population is fully vaccinated in 2 months,” he said. He stressed that his message in these meetings was that Brazil has vaccinated 93% of its population with one dose and 60% with two doses, rates that are allowing “a safe return to work.”

The Minister again criticized the IMF’s forecasts for the Brazilian economy.

“We are truly very confident that we are going to grow twice as much as the IMF is forecasting, we have dropped half of what they forecast. And why are they making such big mistakes? Because of the [domestic] political noise,” Guedes said.

In his statement prepared for the IMF on Brazil, the Minister recalled that the entity had projected a 9.1% plunge for the Brazilian economy in 2020, but that the contraction was less than half that, 4.1%. “This year they said ‘next year it will be 1% (GDP growth)’. And I said they would do it again, they would get it wrong again. It will be at least double, more than 2%,” Guedes said.

In fact, the day before, the IMF revised its projection for Brazil’s growth to 1.5% in 2022, from 1.9% before, and 5.2% in 2021, from 5.3% previously.

The Ministry of Economy’s official projections are for a Gross Domestic Product (GDP) growth of 2.5% for next year and 5.3% for this year.