BRASÍLIA: After presenting Brazil's first ever budget deficit, President Dilma Rousseff promised Wednesday that her government will work hard to get back in the black.
"We are being straightforward. And we are showing, clearly, that there is a problem," she said at a news briefing.
Rousseff made her vow to get her nation's budget under control as Brazil's Central Bank kept its key interest rate at 14.25 percent Wednesday, breaking with a string of seven consecutive hikes aimed at holding back soaring inflation.
Brazil just last week acknowledged that its battered economy -- the world's seventh largest -- has slipped into recession, hard-hit by plummeting oil and commodity prices. Inflation also is high at 9.56 percent and unemployment has risen to 7.5 percent.
Rousseff's government delivered the proposed budget to Congress Monday predicting a primary deficit amounting to 0.5 percent of GDP, or 30.5 billion reais ($8.4 billion).
This was the first time a Brazilian government has unveiled a plan that would mean government spending outstrips revenue.
A primary budget reflects the government's ability to manage savings and debt. The worry for Brazil now is that its debt load will lead to a loss of its investment-grade credit rating, which would be a serious blow to the economy.
"We want to meet the goal that we set," Rousseff told reporters. "So we are going to get that deficit down."
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