Rousseff Said to Study Brazil Budget Freeze With Cabinet Sunday

Rousseff Said to Study Brazil Budget Freeze With Cabinet Sunday
by Carla Simoes/Bloomberg
4:37 PM BRT
May 15, 2015

Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff is scheduled to meet with cabinet members on Sunday to discuss how much spending to freeze from this year’s budget, a person close to the government’s economic team said.
The gathering comes less than a week after Congress passed an amendment to raise expenditures on pensions in a setback to the broader bill designed to shore up fiscal accounts. The meeting, which will include members of the economic and political team, is scheduled to start at 4 p.m. in Brasilia, said the person, who asked not to be named because the information isn’t public.
Rousseff has until May 22 to announce the size of her budget freeze, which doesn’t need congressional approval. The administration is trying to raise taxes and reduce expenditures to achieve a primary budget surplus equivalent to 1.2 percent of gross domestic product in 2015. The government last year ran a deficit before interest payments of 0.6 percent of GDP.