The economic area of the federal government analyzes the possibility of reducing the agricultural credit interest rate for the next Agricultural and Livestock Plan (PAP) 2018/2019, which will begin on July 1 of this year. “We are trying to reach a common denominator, which is good for the rural producer and does not compromise the fiscal budget,” said Wilson Vaz de Araújo, Secretary of Agricultural Policy at the Ministry of Agriculture, Livestock and Supply (MPLS) in the afternoon (08), after attending an audience of Minister Blairo Maggi with the president of the Central Bank, Ilan Goldfajn, and representatives of the Ministry of Finance and the National Treasury.
As for the resources to be allocated to finance the next crop’s crop, the secretary said that “there has to be a balance between the volume of available resources and the interest rate.” He explains that, on the one hand, the Selic rate (the basic interest rate of the economy) and inflation fell. But he said there are other variables such as the source of funds and the impact on the federal budget.
Vaz de Araújo explained that, in order to arrive at a value of the rural plan, “the government considers the execution of the previous year, the availability of sources and the budgetary availability to make the interest rate subsidy.” According to the secretary, the expectation is that the rural credit disbursement in the harvest still in force (2017/2018) will be between R $ 145 billion and R $ 150 billion, out of the total destined amount of R $ 188.3 billion . The Ministry of Agriculture will hold other meetings with the economic team. The announcement of the PAP is scheduled to take place in the first week of June in Brasilia.