Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff named a former treasury secretary with a reputation as a fiscal conservative as finance minister on Thursday in a move that is widely seen as charting a new course for Brazil’s flagging economy and soothing jittery financial markets.
The appointee, Joaquim Levy, is a University of Chicago-trained economist and top executive with the Brazilian bank Bradesco who also has worked at the IMF. He helped shore up investor confidence in Brazil as a member of the economic team of Rousseff’s predecessor and mentor, former Brazilian president Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva. During his 2003 to 2006 tenure as treasury secretary, Levy helped pave the way toward growth by reducing debt.
He was also part of the economic team of Da Silva’s predecessor, former Brazilian president Fernando Henrique Cardoso.
Photo: Reuters
Nicknamed by colleagues “Scissorhands” for his penchant for slashing costs, Levy has a reputation as a hard worker with an obstinate streak. According to local news reports, during his tenure as treasury secretary, Levy once clashed with Rousseff, then minister of mines and energy, so brutally that she threw him out of her office.
The appointment of the 53-year-old Levy is seen as a sign of Rousseff’s willingness to take on the major reforms seen as necessary to jumpstart the sluggish economy.
At a press conference where he was flanked by two other appointees — Nelson Barbosa, who was named minister of planning, and Alexandre Tombini, who stays on as president of the central bank — Levy said that lowering public debt would be a top priority and added any measures implemented would be “without great surprises.”
Levy will succeed Guido Mantega, who was appointed to the post in 2006 under Silva and has presided over four years of lackluster growth as Chinese demand for Brazilian commodities such as iron ore and soy flagged. Brazil’s GDP growth peaked at 7.5 percent in 2010, but the country fell into technical recession in August.
In Thursday’s statement, Rousseff’s office said Mantega would remain in his role through the end of the transition period.
Sao Paulo-based Austin Rating chief economist Alex Augustin hailed Levy’s appointment as “extremely positive.”
“Unfortunately, Brazil’s credibility among investors and businessmen has deteriorated over the past few years,” he said. “But the appointment of someone like Levy with an orthodox and pragmatic profile who worked in the government in 2004 and improved the country’s public debt profile should start changing things.”
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