Bávaro (Dominican Republic), November 18, 2002 (Agência Brasil - ABr) - President Fernando Henrique Cardoso, speaking at the Iberian-American Summit, said it was not possible for Brazil to have a crisis of extreme vulnerability such as the one Argentina was having. He said there was no cause for alarm because the size of public debt had fallen during his term of office and external vulnerability had been reduced.

"This idea [a crisis of extreme vulnerability] seems to have appeared in Brazil, but is out of tune with reality. Brazilian public debt today, at around 10% of GDP, is less than it was in 1994. We do not have difficulties: our reserves are high and we have an US$11 billion trade surplus, which makes it easier to keep things under control," he said. As for external vulnerability, it was once as high as US$33 billion, but is now about US$12 billion. "And this year, a bad year, we are going to have foreign investments totalling US$16 billion, so where is the problem?" (AB)