Brasília- President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva has signed a Temporary Measure (Medida Provisória) (MP) setting out the rules for the way the government's fuel tax, known as the CIDE (Contribuição da Intervenção do Domínio Econômico) will be shared. According to the MP, the federal government will give the states 25% of CIDE revenue. And 25% of what the states get is to be distributed to municipal governments.

The share that each state gets of the 25% will be determined by a formula based on: size of highway network, fuel consumption and population. As things stand now, that means that São Paulo will get 17.47%, followed by Minas Gerais with 10.72%. The state with the smallest share of CIDE revenue will be Amapá with 0.57%.

Last year total CIDE revenue was R$10 billion (which means R$2.5 billion would have been given to the states). (AB)