Brasília, August 14, 2003 (Agência Brasil - ABr) - The government is already examining the possibility of seeking financial resources from foreign pension funds to increase investments in infrastructure. President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva's goal is to improve this sector in order to promote internal growth. "President Lula's orientation is towards feasible things (projects) for which to seek resources, be they from international agencies or pension funds," revealed the Minister in charge of the General Secretariat of the Presidency, Luiz Dulci.
According to the Minister, the largest pension fund in the United States has US$ 8 billion to invest in emerging countries. "The President has said that good projects often call forth the resources," Dulci pointed out.
The Minister recalled that, during the President's trip to Europe in July, Lula made a personal effort to negotiate foreign investments for Brazil. "All the President's trips abroad involve this quest," he observed.
The President has been holding a series of meetings with Ministers and the presidents of the Federal Savings Bank, the Bank of Brazil, and National Economic and Social Development Bank (BNDES), and Petrobras to discuss the government's major projects in the area of infrastructure. The government also wants to guarantee resources from the state enterprises and private pension funds to provide feasibility for these projects.
Concern over the country's infrastructure is not restricted to the federal government alone, however. Civil society also defined the improvement of roads, ports, and basic sanitation as among the country's principal needs. Increasing government investments in infrastructure is a point of consensus among the over two thousand civil society organizations that, during the past two months, participated in discussions in the 27 Brazilian states on the 2004-2007 Pluriannual Plan (PPA). Today, in the Planalto Palace, at a ceremony that will be attended by representatives of 135 civil society organizations, President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva will receive a synthesis of the suggestions made during the debates.
Other areas, besides infrastructure, that were also defined as priorities by these entities were social programs, the environment, the generation of jobs, and tourism. Minister Dulci, who coordinated the debates with civil society, did not furnish numbers nor the chief suggestions received by the government. According to the Minister, the entities will make their priorities public and present them in detail, tomorrow.
"It is not a tradition for the political area to meet with civil society. But there was no confrontation. At times, the same individual (who participated in the debates) is on the street in a labor demonstration," the Minister pointed out.
Dulci revealed that there is an explicit determination on the part of President Lula to include in the PPA the principal suggestions made by the civil society organizations. He acknowledged, however, that some proposals may be excluded from the PPA by the government itself or during the debates in the National Congress. "The effort that the government is making is to assess and identify what the society as a whole considers to be priorities," he assured.
According to Dulci, budget limitations will certainly block the feasibility of some suggestions, bujt the PPA is being planned for investments over the next four years. "One thing is the PPA for four years. Another thing is the annual budget," he made clear.
The government has already announced that it will allocate R$ 191.4 billion for infrastructure in the PPA through 2007.
The president of the Brazilian Association of NGO's, Sérgio Haddad, is optimistic about the channel opened by the government, and he said that the next step is to maintain the continuity of the process from here on. "Expectations for the incorporation (of suggestions into the PPA) will depend upon what is universal in the demands, what has greatest political weight. Even if their suggestions aren't incorporated by the Administration or by Congress, the organizations should influence the debate for their proposals to prevail," he underlined. (DAS)
