“We’re going to meet next week in Washington and we’re going to talk about what to do to help the European Union get out of this situation.” That’s what Guido Mantega, Brazil’s finance minister, told reporters in Brasília on Tuesday following a report in Valor Econômica, a business daily, that Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa were considering a plan to switch part of their foreign currency reserves into euro-denominated assets.
Mantega – not unknown to let his announcements get ahead of developments – sounded more confident than Valor’s unidentified source, who told the paper: “Let’s wait to see how things develop in Europe.” At present, the person said, there were no decisions about buying European bonds.
We’ll bring you more on the Valor report shortly.
Stefan Wagstyl
Josh Noble
Rob Minto
Pan Kwan Yuk
Jonathan Wheatley
Heba Saleh