In a press conference of the Transition Cabinet this Tuesday afternoon (13), president-elect Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva (PT) said that “privatizations in the country are over”. “There will be an end to privatizations in this country. They have already privatized almost everything. It will end, and we will show that some public companies will be able to show their profitability, ”he said.
For economists consulted by the CNN the speech is not a surprise, but it signals a radicalization of the economic policy discourse and still leaves doubts about how the agenda of Public-Private Partnerships (PPPs) and concessions should be managed in the future PT government.
Lula’s statement demonstrates that “the Lula of now is very far from the Lula of the 1st round, who was a Lula with a very reasonable economic stance. He is approaching the Dilma government, which was a disaster”, evaluated the former director of the Central Bank (BC), Luiz Fernando Figueiredo.
For Inter’s chief economist, Rafaela Vitória, Lula’s talk about privatizations is not a surprise. “It was expected from the PT that it would not dispose of any state control; the use of state-owned companies for development was widespread in PT governments,” she said.
After the president-elect spoke, the market reacted. Around 5:10 pm, the Ibovespa fell 1.57%, to 103,694 points.
According to Murilo Viana, specialist in Public Finance, the speech is given by a political context and that interests the Workers’ Party (PT), since part of its staff is made up of public servants.
According to Viana, issues such as privatization and administrative reform are the “Achilles heel” for the president-elect.
Figueiredo recalls that the signals given by Lula and his transition team go in the opposite direction of the center, precisely the base that elected him as President of the Republic in the second round of elections.
“The size of the PEC [do Estouro] moves away from fiscal sustainability. Now, him saying that, a model of a bigger state, more interventionist. The signs are more for a radical side and less for a center side, which was the base that placed him as president”, said the former BC director.
For Viana, there is still a fear on the part of the financial market regarding the models that the new government should adopt in relation to public-private partnerships (PPPs) and concessions, if they are made.
According to him, the then Minister of Infrastructure in the government of Jair Bolsonaro (PL), Tarcísio de Freitas, had a clear agenda for privatizations as well as concessions and PPPs.
For Vitória, the expectation now is to see how the concession agenda will go, such as those for highways and railways, which, according to the economist, should continue. “But there is a difference between privatization, which is the sale of the company, and concessions, and we expect concessions to continue,” she said.
“Both Lula and Dilma made many concessions, for airports and highways, for example, and they are an important way to bring resources from the private sector, to the infrastructure sector, which the public power does not have” evaluates the Inter economist.
Sergio Vale, chief economist at MB Associados and economics analyst at CNN, follows Vitória’s opinion on the concessions. “In a way, this position was already expected. Nothing will be privatized in fact, but I hope that at least the concessions will continue to happen. If this is also paralyzed, it will be very serious.”
Also during this Tuesday’s event, Lula announced the name of Aloizio Mercadante as the next president of the BNDES.
When justifying the choice of Mercadante for the BNDES, he explained that “we need someone who thinks about development, someone who thinks about reindustrializing this country, who thinks about technological innovation, someone who thinks about generating financing for small, large and medium entrepreneur so that this country can generate jobs again”.
In addition to Mercadante, members who will be part of the team of the future Minister of Finance, Fernando Haddad, are being announced. During the morning, economist Gabriel Galípolo accepted the invitation to occupy the post of executive secretary of the Ministry of Finance in the Lula government.
* Collaborated with Juliana Elias, from CNN
Source: CNN Brasil
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