Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva vowed Monday to restore stability and credibility, and called on Portuguese and other companies to partner with companies in his country, in a bid to re-attract wary foreign investors.
“Brazil is ready to be a great country again,” Lula told business leaders in the northern Portuguese town of Matosinos. Brazil is ready to become an attractive country again.
Leftist President Lula arrived in Portugal on Friday for a five-day visit, his first to Europe since taking office, and is trying to allay investor concerns about his ambitious social spending goals.
At the event in Matosinos, which was also attended by Portuguese Prime Minister Antonio Costa and other government officials, Lula said that to attract foreign capital, Brazil needed political, social and judicial stability.
“Without that, no investor will put money into another country,” he said, criticizing former President Jair Bolsonaro for keeping Brazil “isolated from the world” during his four years in power.
He said there are opportunities for foreign investment in various sectors, including renewable energy projects, and that Brazil is looking for partnerships, highlighting the agreement between Brazilian aircraft manufacturer Embraer and Portuguese airline OGMA to build NATO-certified aircraft.
The two countries’ trade and investment agencies, Portugal’s AICEP and Brazil’s APEX, have signed a cooperation agreement.
Lula reiterated his criticism of Brazilian interest rates, saying that domestic lending costs are too high.
“Currently the benchmark interest rate is 13.75% and no one is borrowing money at 13.75%,” Lula said.
Lula and other politicians have pressed the independent central bank to cut interest rates, which are currently at six-year highs, but the bank’s governor, Roberto Campos Neto, has defended his actions by describing them as technical rather than political.
Lula also reaffirmed that his administration would not sell public companies.
“Over the past six years, Brazil has sold many public assets, not to build others, but simply to pay interest on the public debt,” added Lula, particularly criticizing the privatization of the electricity company Eletrobras. Latin America’s largest facility, Eletrobras, was privatized in June 2022 by the Bolsonaro administration, when the government diluted its then majority stake in the company in a $6.9 billion equity offering.
