Brazil debt, budget deficit seen falling-report

Sun Jun 6, 2010 11:45am EDT

* Brazil's net debt seen falling to 30 pct of GDP by 2014

* Nominal deficit seen narrowing to zero in coming years

SAO PAULO, June 6 (Reuters) - Brazil's incoming government will face favorable indicators, with the economy expanding and net debt falling in the coming years, Budget and Planning Minister Paulo Bernardo said in an interview published on Sunday in O Globo newspaper.

Net debt should drop to 30 percent of gross domestic product by 2014, and the country will likely narrow the nominal budget deficit to zero in the next administration, Bernardo told O Globo.

Brazil's net debt, or total debt minus international reserves and other government cash, reached 42.2 percent of GDP in April, while the nominal deficit in the year through April totaled 3.24 percent of GDP.

"This issue of questioning the debt will be over," Bernardo said in the Globo interview. "No one will talk about this again."

People in Brazil, Latin America's largest economy, will vote in general elections in October.

Brazil's gross debt increased last year as the government put more funds into state development bank BNDES and federally owned Caixa Economica Federal in a bid to stoke the economy and ease the effects of the global recession, Bernardo added.

Still, the government's $250 billion in foreign exchange reserves should help ease concerns over the increase in the gross debt. (Reporting by Elzio Barreto, editing by Maureen Bavdek)

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