The president of Brazil, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, on Thursday criticized the International Monetary Fund for “choke” the Argentine economy as a result of the requirements required to meet foreign debt obligations. It was during a speech at the New Development Bank, the development bank of the BRICS (Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa), as part of their tour of China.
“You cannot suffocate countries as Argentina is doing now with the IMF and as they did with Brazil and other countries,” Lula said as he celebrated the assumption of former president Dilma Rousseff at the helm of the NDB.
Lula defended trade and financing in local currencies without the use of the dollar and claimed the NDB as a way to break free from the “moorings” of traditional funding agencieswith reference to the IMF and the World Bank.
“No ruler can rule with a knife to the throat by the fact that the country is a debtor. Multilateral banks should put forbearance on any renewal of agreements. The dream of creating the BRICS was to create a development tool,” Lula said at the headquarters of the development bank of the southern hemisphere located in Shanghai on the first day of his tour in China.
Additionally, he criticized the way countries borrowed just to cover the financial bill and do not allocate loans from the IMF or private banks to motorize development or infrastructure.
“All countries can borrow, of course. But to create works, goods that didn’t exist before, to have more productive capacity. We want to see that world from now on, not the world of those who think that the geniuses who they think about the economy and after they want the state to bail out bankruptcy”he assured.
Lula cited the case of the bankruptcy of Lehman Brothers in 2008 in the United States and the recent crisis of the Swiss bank Credit Suisse. “They gave lessons in wisdom and Switzerland had to do it earmark 8% of its GDP to bail out private banks“, lashed out at the former metallurgical leader.
Source: Clarin
Mary Ortiz is a seasoned journalist with a passion for world events. As a writer for News Rebeat, she brings a fresh perspective to the latest global happenings and provides in-depth coverage that offers a deeper understanding of the world around us.