Brazil to keep US$190bil cash cushion

“It was not easy to raise our liquidity cushion when there was still concern with the pandemic,” Treasury secretary Jefferson Bittencourt said. (File pic shows Brazilian real and US dollar)

BRASILIA: Brazil’s government plans to keep a cushion of at least one trillion reais (US$190bil or RM794.4bil) in cash next year to face local debt maturities as it braces for possible market turbulence in the run-up to presidential elections, according to Treasury Secretary Jeferson Bittencourt.

The Treasury had a hard time in 2020, when investors concerned with President Jair Bolsonaro’s big spending plans to fight the pandemic had little appetite for anything other than short-term government bonds.