Campos Neto knows that people lose money with high interest rates, says Lula

President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva once again criticized the financial market and the level of the Selic (basic interest rate for the Brazilian economy) this Tuesday (23) and said that the president of the Central Bank, Roberto Campos Neto, needs to know that Those who “lose money” with high interest rates are the “Brazilian people”. “With all due respect to the market, I want more good for Brazil than for the market.”

Lula stated that the market needs to be responsible. “This country cannot be scared every day that the market didn’t like this and didn’t like that. The market is making a lot of money with this interest rate. This has to be clear to society. And the president of the Central Bank has to know that those who lose money with this high interest rate are the Brazilian people”.

During breakfast with journalists at Palácio do Planalto, the President of the Republic also spoke about the succession at BC. “I have to nominate more directors and I have to nominate the president of the Central Bank by the end of the year. I just have to decide whether I’m going to bring it forward or leave it as close as possible to the expiration of President Roberto Campos’ term.”

Campos Neto was nominated by Lula’s predecessor, former president Jair Bolsonaro (PL), his opponent in the 2022 elections and still his main rival in the country’s current political scenario. Since the beginning of his third term, the president has frequently highlighted his differences with Campos Neto, mainly criticizing the BC’s restrictive monetary policy, stating that the basic interest rate level remains very high.

With the operational autonomy of the BC established in 2021, the president of the municipality now has a fixed mandate of four years. This created an unprecedented scenario for Lula, who was unable to immediately appoint someone to command the monetary authority and had to deal with the one appointed by Bolsonaro.

“Anyone who has lived with Roberto Campos for a year and four months has no problem living for another six months. What I hope is that Roberto Campos takes into account that Brazil is not at risk”, stated Lula, highlighting the time when Brazil had debt with the International Monetary Fund (IMF). “Very few countries have the security that Brazil has.”

In the first year of Lula’s term, the BC kept the basic interest rate unchanged at 13.75% per year until August, when it made a first cut of 0.5 percentage points. The falls have been of the same magnitude since then and, currently, the Selic is at 10.75%.

Lula stated that, even so, he “has all the patience in the world”, because he needs to wait until December to change the BC presidency. “See how calm we are,” she declared. “I’m not driven by the market, I’m driven by solutions for the Brazilian people.”

One of the names being considered for succession as president of the BC is the authority’s director of monetary policy, Gabriel Galípolo, who was executive secretary of the Ministry of Finance. Haddad’s former right-hand man defended, earlier this month, that the institution’s leaders should not be involved in the selection process, which is the responsibility of the President of the Republic.

(With Estadão Conteúdo and Reuters)