Brazil’s Lula seeks growth with fiscal responsibility

Bloomberg

Brazil’s Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva plans to boost growth with a campaign against hunger and a program of government-led investments if elected president, all of that without jeopardising fiscal accounts, according to one of his closest aides.
Alexandre Padilha, one of Lula’s many representatives in talks with financial markets ahead of the October vote, says that investors need not worry about the leftist leader overspending if he returns for a third term. The so-called spending cap rule that limits public expenditures, harshly criticised by the former president, would just be replaced by another fiscal anchor. “We are not a spendthrift government,” Padilha, who was minister of institutional relations under Lula, said. “Fiscal responsibility was always a hallmark of Lula’s eight-year administration.”
Padilha has participated in several meetings with local and foreign investors to present the guidelines for an economic program that is short in details because they haven’t been decided yet.
He tries to assuage investors’ anxiety by assuring that Lula is open to discussing his program with all economic players as he strives to put together a broad coalition against President Jair Bolsonaro.
“The conversation with markets has already started and won’t stop,” he said.