BRAZIL SAYS DEBT CRISIS IS WORLD PROBLEM

  Brazilian Finance Minister
  Dilson Funaro said his country's foreign debt crisis could only
  be solved by changes in the international financial system.
      Speaking to a business conference he said "It is not Brazil
  that has to make adjustments with the IMF (International
  Monetary Fund). It is the international financial community
  that is taking away resources from the developing countries."
      "The crisis is not in Brazil, a country that has had the
  third biggest trade surplus ...In the past two years Brazil had
  remitted 24 billion dlrs in debt servicing and received only
  two billion in fresh funds," he added.
      Funaro said that during his recent trip to the U.S., Europe
  and Japan to explain Brazil's decision last month to suspend
  interest payments on 68 billion dlrs of commercial debt, he
  stressed the country's commitment to growth.
      "We need to and will make the effort (to solve the debt
  problem) but we cannot make an effort that means we stop
  growing," he said, adding that political and not purely
  commercial solutions were needed to the debt crisis.
      Brazil, whose 108 billion dlr foreign debt is the largest
  in the developing world, has been under pressure from official
  and private creditors to work out an economic adjustment
  program with the IMF to combat rocketing inflation and foreign
  payments problems.
      President Jose Sarney's government has repeatedly refused
  to approach the Fund, arguing that an IMF programme would lead
  to recession. Funaro said that in his talks with creditors he
  had tried to restore credibility in the country in the hope of
  finding a lasting solution to the debt problem.
      "We are negotiating so that the debt question should not be
  one of continuous crisis."
      To sustain internal growth Brazil would have to import more
  machinery and equipment this year and export fewer raw
  materials. The country was thus targetting a fall in this
  year's trade surplus to 8.0 billion dlrs from 1986's 9.5
  billion.
      Domestically, Funaro said economies had led to a reduction
  in the public sector deficit to 2.7 pct of gross domestic
  product in 1986, the lowest for many years and that this should
  fall to 1.5 pct this year.
  

