Brazil's August public account balance worst in 12 years

Brazil's public sector registered a primary deficit of 432 million Brazilian reals (194 million U.S. dollars) in August, the worst balance for a month since records were first kept in 2001, Brazil's Central Bank said Monday. From January to August, the consolidated public sector showed a positive balance of 54 billion reals (24.32 billion dollars), accounting for 1.73 percent of the country's gross domestic product (GDP) and representing a fall of 27 percent compared with the same period in 2012. The government's goal for this year is to reach a primary surplus of 111 billion reals (50 billion dollars), equivalent to 2.3 percent of the GDP. However, in the first eight months, the government only accomplished less than half of it. The public sector primary surplus includes the total savings of the government, states, municipalities and state-owned companies, earmarked for paying interest on government debt. The interest payment on government debt amounted to 163 billion reals (73.42 billion dollars), 5.23 percent of the total GDP, in the first eight months of 2013, according to Brazil's Central Bank. To reach this year's goal, the Brazilian government announced in May it was cutting 28 billion reals (12.61 billion dollars) from the Federal Budget, followed by an additional cut of 10 billion reals (4.5 billion dollars) in July. Fiscal responsibility is one of the five pledges President Dilma Rousseff made in June, following mass anti-government protests nationwide in demand of better public services. The goal for 2014, an election year in which Rousseff will seek re-election, is a primary surplus of 2.1 percent of the total GDP.