SAO PAULO: "We will beat this crisis," Brazil's unpopular President Michel Temer said in a Christmas broadcast on Saturday, as the country remained mired in recession and uncertainty.
The conservative leader, who succeeded Dilma Rousseff, impeached in August, noted that Brazil was closing out a year "of immense challenges" but he projected optimism for the year to come.
Brazil, Latin America's biggest economy, is facing its third year of recession, with climbing unemployment, high inflation and a growing list of austerity measures.
At the same time, there is ongoing political turmoil following Rousseff's ouster, and major corruption scandals -- involving the state-run oil company Petrobras and construction giant Odebrecht -- that are claiming political scalps.
Next year, the central bank forecasts that Brazil will emerge from recession -- only just -- with 0.8 percent growth. But the bank has already revised down its figures recently and may yet do so again.
Temer insisted that Brazil was now "on the right path" and his government would implement measures to boost growth.
He noted that lawmakers had already passed a constitutional reform freezing public spending at its current level for the next two decades, as well as tightening up the generous pensions system and easing strict labor laws.
"I am utterly conscious of the country's problems and the task I have before me," he said.
According to the polling firm Datafolha, Temer has an approval rating of only 10 percent. More than 60 percent of Brazilians want him to step down before he completes the rest of Rousseff's term, which runs to the end of 2018.
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