Dilma prepares "GDP-boosting" operation.

Minas 247 - The government is preparing an operation to confront head-on the biggest threat to Dilma Rousseff's record popularity: the low growth of the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) in the first two years of the president's administration. The figures, so far, are well below the average of her predecessor, also a member of the Workers' Party, Lula. During his eight years in the Planalto Palace, Lula's government achieved an average GDP growth of 4,4%. Under Dilma, that average is 2,2%, or half.

In the two years immediately preceding the presidential elections – 2013 and 2014 – Dilma's government will become more similar to that of her predecessor and political mentor. The economic team is already prepared to open the coffers. In other words, in addition to stimulating consumption – via lower interest rates for consumers, which is beginning to become a reality, albeit timidly – ​​Dilma's government will also spend. Public investment is one of the components of GDP.

With public works projects, whether or not they are partnered with the private sector, the federal government hopes to increase market forecasts for economic expansion in the last two years before the end of Dilma's term – or first term, depending on the circumstances...

These forecasts indicate an average annual growth of 2,35%. This figure is much lower than Lula's, but even so, it is already higher than the 2,2% of Fernando Henrique Cardoso's (PSDB) eight-year term. For this very reason, changes are also expected in official communication. The common perception among important people in the government is that the situation is not as bad as portrayed by the press and the opposition – with the help of the government, which is not showing supposed "progress".

For 2013, the market projects GDP growth of 4,1%, a percentage that is repeated in relation to 2014. If these numbers are confirmed, the Brazilian economy, under Dilma, will have expanded at an average of 3,2%. This is not a negligible number in a scenario of crisis in the central economies, but it is enough to generate comparisons with recent years.

Dilma wants to avoid them. And she will open the coffers starting this semester. She has already taken the first step, after the Chamber of Deputies approved, this Tuesday, Provisional Measure 564, which grants incentives to industry. The MP includes sectors in the BNDES's Revitaliza Program, and also injects R$ 45 billion from the National Treasury into the BNDES itself, in order to expand the development bank's lending capacity.

Last week, Dilma laid the foundation stone for Petrobras' P-59 platform, which is expected to be completed in 2014. The date, of course, is not accidental. Until then, the federal government is preparing actions to stimulate the economy, including reducing energy costs and building highways, ports, railways, and airports, in conjunction with the private sector. In this planning, the economic team and the president herself are counting on the private sector.

But the "GDP-boosting" operation is really betting on the effects of interest rate cuts, both at the base and at the end. At the end, albeit very gradually, the rate charged to consumers and businesses on loans granted by private banks is beginning to fall, stimulated by competition from Caixa and Banco do Brasil.

At the base level, the latest reduction in the Selic rate, implemented by the Central Bank last week, brought the interest rate down to 8%, the lowest in history. In an article in Valor EconômicoFormer minister Delfim Netto expressed confidence that the cuts will eventually impact GDP: "We will grow little in 2012. Perhaps nothing much different from 2%, but the effects of the measures already taken suggest that we should be running at 4%-4,5% at the end of 2012 compared to the end of 2011."

In other words, for Delfim, the "tiny GDP growth" would already be a reasonable GDP growth by the turn of this year to the next, with an upward trend throughout 2013 and 2014. If his prediction and that of the economic team – as well as Dilma herself – is correct, the opposition will have more difficulties than it imagines in the presidential elections. If not, only Lula can help the president. To be seen...