11/18/2008 17h00
Country has injected US$ 71.8 billion against crisis
O Estado de S.Paulo 11/18/2008
The government has already injected approximately R$ 150 billion (US$ 68.2 billion) to increase the liquidity in the credit market and to combat the effects of the financial crisis in Brazil. According to data released by the president of the Central Bank, Henrique Meirelles, yesterday, only in the operation with exchange there was the injection of US$ 46.5 billion (R$ 106 billion, at Friday's quotation). This amount includes since auctions of dollars and sale of the currency in cash in the market to loans for foreign trade. During the last weeks, the government has injected approximately R$ 52 billion (US$ 23.6 billion) to help reestablish credit in other sectors - including Banco do Brazil Bank and Federal Savings Bank's R$ 8 billion (US$ 3.6 billion) of real estate financing for civil servants announced yesterday. The total amount does not include R$ 56 billion (US$ 25.4 billion) of reserve requirements of big banks. These funds were blocked in the CB and were released to stimulate the purchase of credit portfolios of small- and mid-sized banks. The amount of R$ 158 billion (US$ 71.8 billion) includes, however, the funds released by the government to normalize credit. How much of that total will be used is not known. Everything will depend on companies and consumers' demand. According to Meirelles, from the US$ 46.5 billion used by the government to try to stop the high of the dollar rate, US$ 30 billion was used by the CB for swaps auctions (dollar contracts). For loans aimed to foreign trade lines, the funds amount to US$ 4.1 billion. It was US$ 5.8 billion for the sale of dollars with repurchase commitment and US$ 6.1 billion for the cash market. Nowadays, the objective of the CB is to give liquidity to the market. Among the operations mentioned by Meirelles, he said that the injection of dollars in cash dollar in the market is the only one that affects the international reserves, but, despite that, they still exceed US$ 200 billion.
