Brazilian Finance Minister Calls Out EURO Devaluation

The currency war, which the countries that are devaluating their currencies don’t seem to acknowledge, while the countries who are slipping as their competitive advantage erodes due to a strong currency are speaking out.

Such is the case of Brazil, where Finance Minister Guido Mantega told reporters earlier that France’s comments to the ECB will not help. In that he shares a point of view with German Chancellor Angela Merkel, who is in favour of letting the market set the value of the currency. Paradoxically Francois Holland the French President got elected in a platform that pushed stimulus spending to achieve growth, rather than austerity and market intervention.

Brazilian Finance Minister Guido Mantega told Reuters European countries should focus on reviving their economies with more investments, rather than trying to weaken the euro to protects jobs as France has suggested ahead of next week’s meeting of G20 economic powers.

“We will continue to have this currency problem unless the global economy takes off,” Mantega said in an interview late Thursday. “The solution here is to make their economies more dynamic and jolt them out of stagnation.”

More than two years ago Mantega used the term “currency wars” to describe the series of competitive devaluations adopted by rich nations to bolster their exports amid the global slowdown to the detriment of emerging market nations.

It seems that although Brazil condones the actions of Central Banks it is not above trying the same tactics. It will be interesting to see how the topic of currency manipulation is addressed during the upcoming G20 meeting in Russia.

via CNBCangela

This article is for general information purposes only. It is not investment advice or a solution to buy or sell securities. Opinions are the authors; not necessarily that of OANDA Corporation or any of its affiliates, subsidiaries, officers or directors. Leveraged trading is high risk and not suitable for all. You could lose all of your deposited funds.

Alfonso Esparza

Alfonso Esparza

Senior Currency Analyst at Market Pulse
Alfonso Esparza specializes in macro forex strategies for North American and major currency pairs. Upon joining OANDA in 2007, Alfonso Esparza established the MarketPulseFX blog and he has since written extensively about central banks and global economic and political trends. Alfonso has also worked as a professional currency
trader focused on North America and emerging markets. He has been published by The MarketWatch, Reuters, the Wall Street Journal and The Globe and Mail, and he also appears regularly as a guest commentator on networks including Bloomberg and BNN. He holds a finance degree from the Monterrey Institute of Technology and Higher Education (ITESM) and an MBA with a specialization on financial engineering and marketing from the University of Toronto.
Alfonso Esparza