Source:
INESC
Thu Feb 28 2008
The Brazilian government will substitute an orthodox economist who identifies with the "market" theory for one of the main voices of the opposite (unorthodox) tendency to represent Brazil and eight other Latin American countries at the International Monetary Fund (IMF). The nominee is Paulo Nogueira Batista Junior, professor at the Getúlio Vargas Foundation (FGV) in Sao Paulo.
The economist will take the place of Eduardo Loyo, who was at the Pontifícia Universidade Católica (PUC) in Rio de Janeiro and director of the Central Bank in the early days of Lula's government.
The change was announced on 23 February by the Ministry of Economy, responsible for appointing the new director to represent Brazil and its eight partners: Colombia, Ecuador, Guyana, Haiti, Panama, Dominican Republic, Surinam, and Trinidad and Tobago. The nine countries make up a sort of joint action group in the IMF. The interests of the group are represented at IMF headquarters in Washington D.C. by an executive director.
In a press release, the Ministry of Economy informed that Loyo had requested to be relieved of the post due to personal reasons and would return to work in Brazil. Loyo was director of the Central Bank for two years, until September 2006, when minister Guido Mantega decided to transfer him to the IMF. As director of the Central Bank, Loyo was part of the conservative 'troops', together with the director of Political Economy, Afonso Bevilágua, who will shortly leave his post. They were both colleagues at PUC-Rio, the main orthodox reference in the academic milieu.
Paulo Nogueira, who will take office in April, will complete Loyo's term. The Ministry of Economy did not give any reasons for his designation. Nogueira is known for his critical vision of the economic policies of Fernando Henrique Cardozo's government continued during Lula's administration: high interest rates, the free flow of dollars within the country and the payment of interests with money from taxes (primary surplus). He is also a critic of globalization and is against the creation of a Free Trade Area of the Americas (FTAA), a subject about which he has already written a book, A Alca e o Brasil ('The FTAA and Brazil').
Yet Paulo Nogueira believes that the arrival of Mantega to head the economic team helped distance the orthodoxy of the times of Pedro Malan and Antonio Palocci, at least with respect to fiscal policy based on primary surplus. Nogueira's was one of the voices that the minister of Economy listened to during the production of the Program for Accelerated Growth (Programa de Aceleração do Crescimento - PAC); they both held talks in the ministry before the Program was announced.
Nogueira also negotiated the Brazilian external debt during José Sarney's government (1985-1990), when the country declared a moratorium. Among the nine countries that he will represent in the IMF, two still have agreements with the institution (i.e., they still submit their decisions on economic policies to the IMF): Haiti and Dominican Republic.
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