S&P confident Brazil will avoid collapse
Reuters, Sunday, November 08, 1998 at 23:50
MELBOURNE, Nov 9 (Reuters) - Standard & Poor's Corp said on
Monday it was confident the international community would not
allow Brazil's economy to collapse, but warned that Brazil's
outlook was the big question mark in financial markets.
S&P president Leo O'Neill said the lack of investor
confidence that had swept across world markets was starting to
clear up, but said the one factor that could derail the change
in sentiment was Brazil.
"Having said that, let me be clear, I don't believe Brazil
is going to collapse," O'Neill told reporters.
The International Monetary Fund and the world's richest
nations spent the past weekend working out the final details of
a multibillion-dollar rescue package for Brazil, trying to
stave off a meltdown in Latin America.
"I think there's widespread and general consensus that this
needs to work," O'Neill said.
He added that inside Brazil, which he visited recently,
there appeared to be a strong commitment to economic stability.
But he warned that if it did not work, not only would
investors lose confidence in the rest of Latin America,
including Argentina and Mexico, but they would turn pessimistic
on Asia again.
"If the situation in Brazil were allowed to get out of
control, I think it would cause investors to once again
re-examine with a very jaundiced eye what progress has been
made in East Asia, and I think that would call into question
the advances that have been made to date," O'Neill told
reporters.
"The fire wall is in Brazil right now," he said, after
speaking at a business lunch.
9621 2994, melbourne.newsroom@reuters.com))
Copyright 1998, Reuters News Service |
