Most Brazilians support 'Plano Real' - poll
Reuters, Monday, March 16, 1998 at 15:05
SAO PAULO, March 16 (Reuters) - Most Brazilians support the
government's "Plano Real" economic stabilization program
despite worries that unemployment will keep rising, a poll
published Monday said.
The survey conducted by Datafolha, the polling unit of
local daily Folha de Sao Paulo, found that 53 percent of
Brazilians favor the inflation-busting plan. Only 14 percent
said it was a failure.
The poll, which surveyed 2,980 people March 10-11, has a
two percent margin of error.
The plan, backed by a strong currency known as the "real"
and high interest rates, has wrestled annual inflation down
from a dizzying 2,700 percent at its outset in July 1994 to
about 4.5 percent today.
The plan's approval rating was virtually unchanged from
December, when 54 percent of those polled said they favored it.
But its popularity has fallen since before the Asian crisis,
when some 64 percent of respondents approved of it, Datafolha
said.
Despite support for the plan, there are worries that
Brazil's unemployment rate, which stood at 7.25 percent in
January, would keep rising, the poll found.
Sixty-three percent of those questioned said they expected
unemployment to rise in the coming months. But that number is
lower than in December, when 70 percent of Datafolha
respondents said they expected a rise in the jobless rate.
Unemployment jumped in January as interest rate hikes and
budget cuts - designed to support the local currency from
speculators - began taking their effect on the economy.
Copyright 1998, Reuters News Service |
