Brazil Lula favors making car tax breaks permanent
BRASILIA (Reuters) - Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva said on Wednesday he favors making industrial tax breaks for the automobile industry permanent as a way of helping the economy emerge from recession.
In an interview with Reuters, Lula stressed that the government still has not made a final decision on whether to extend the tax breaks for a longer period of time.
"My position is that we need to transform this into a permanent policy," he said, adding that the tax breaks have proven successful in helping the auto industry weather the current economic downturn.
Lula added that the government would take additional measures to stimulate the economy if needed, though he offered no specifics on what that might entail.
He also offered a vigorous defense of the central bank's handling of monetary policy, saying that politics should never interfere in interest rate decisions.
Addressing questions about his chosen candidate for next year's presidential race, Lula said a government led by his chief of staff Dilma Rousseff would not abandon the main pillars of current economic policy.
(Reporting by Todd Benson and Raymond Colitt, Editing by Chizu Nomiyama)
