Brazil's newly-minted President Dilma Rousseff will raise concerns about foreign exchange rates and trade protectionism when she visits China in April, the country's trade and industry minister said on Monday. Raising currency and protectionism questions with the Asian giant "will be a priority," Minister Fernando Pimentel told reporters on Monday.
"This is a subject that speaks not just to Brazil but to all emerging markets," he added. Rousseff, who took office on January 1, is expected to travel to several countries this year, including the United States. The China trip will include a summit of the so-called BRIC emerging market powerhouses, which also include Russia and India.
Brazil's real firmed 4.6 percent against the dollar in 2010, on top of a 34 percent surge in 2009. Those gains have made Brazilian exports more expensive abroad and the government has responded with a range of measures, including currency market interventions and capital inflows taxes to brake the real's gains.
The government also plans to move forward with the creation of a lender to help finance exports, previously announced in May. In contrast, China has come under fire for what many countries call its undervalued currency, which some say has helped boost the country's exports at the expense of other nations.
"An exchange rate at this level harms domestic production. And so we need to be careful to find paths without changing the floating exchange rate model we've adopted," Pimentel said. "The government will not stay passive" as the currency strengthens and hurts industry, he added.
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