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Vice President Hamilton Mourão (PRTB) attributed the increase in food prices in the basic basket, such as rice, to the money that the federal government injected into the economy with social programs, the main one being emergency aid.
Mourão said that the increase in consumer prices “is a matter of the law of supply and demand.”
“Many people are buying because the money that the government injected into the economy was much higher than what people were used to, so much so that there is a large purchase of food and construction materials,” the vice president said today in Brasilia.
“People are eating better and improving their homes, these are two areas where there is a lot of spending,” he added.
Increase in exports
Mourão also recalled rice exports, which have intensified in recent months due to the increase in the dollar, which makes selling to other countries more attractive than the domestic market for some producers.
“We are also selling a lot to the foreign market. The area planted with rice in recent years has decreased because rice farmers have suffered a lot of losses, so the type of business changes. Now they are replanting,” he said.
In fact, entities linked to the rice sector and experts assure that, although there was an increase in domestic demand for food during the pandemic, the rise in prices is mainly linked to the appreciation of the dollar, which made it more profitable to export products and earn in dollars to sell them nationwide. In 2020 alone, the dollar was up almost 34%.
Even though producers said the price should remain high, Mourão said he believes in a price normalization soon. “It’s a seasonal time, everything will be back to normal in a little while,” he said.
“High transient”
Like Mourão, the Secretary for Economic Policy of the Ministry of Economy, Adolfo Sachsida, also said he is confident that the increase in food prices will be temporary.
He also attributes the increase in prices to emergency aid, contrary to what the producer sector says.
“The recent rise in the prices of some foods is a transitory and localized rise. It is derived mainly from the transfer of resources to the poorest sectors of the population, in the effort that the government has made to combat the effects of the food crisis. coronavirus, “he said. Sachsida, in an interview with GloboNews.
