Dilma Rousseff à TV 247: “BRICS são um instrumento de paz num mundo turbulento”

Thank you once again for the opportunity. First, I want to greet you. It's also a pleasure for me to receive TV 247 here, considering how much TV 247 has grown. I want to congratulate you on your awards in recent times, and because it's very important that we have this conversation with a Brazilian media outlet here. I wanted to thank you for the question, but now I'm doing well. What I had was a virus that affected the nerve that transmits — I don't know exactly what it transmits because I'm not from that area, it's not my field. But what I understood is that it affects the vestibular system, which affects balance. You also get a lot of nausea, a kind of dizziness. But the strong dizziness lasted about four days. I had perfect treatment here. They only let you leave the hospital when you're completely recovered, when you've stopped taking IV medication and serum. Then you have a recovery period after you leave, and that recovery is guaranteed and smooth. Mine went very well.

Look, I can tell you one thing: avoiding all the viruses out there, I'm perfect. What we always have to be careful about, because traveling a lot — everyone gets a bit worn down, especially when I travel those long distances, because I also have to see Brazil. You can't go too long without seeing it, because it's not enough to see by video. You're a bird that was born in Brazil, you go back to Brazil. And if you're a bird born in Brazil — you also have grandchildren, family, I have everything. So since I travel a lot, I have a drop in immunity, and that's how this happened. I had this once before, I had the flu. I prefer the flu, you know. Let's talk about the bank.

Look, I arrived here on March 27, 2023, and the bank was going through a crisis. You could attribute it partly to COVID, but also to problems within the bank itself. What was this crisis? A bank is an entity that goes to the market and raises financing. It generally borrows in the short term — every bank is like this — and lends over a longer term. That's the role of a bank, the role of credit: to extend the borrower's capacity to pay over a longer period. So what had happened with the bank? For 16 months, 15 to 16 months, it had stopped going to the market. It had stopped going to the market, and that compromised two things: it compromised the capacity to lend to the member countries, which are Brazil, Russia, China, India, South Africa, the UAE, Bangladesh, and Egypt — those are the eight countries. Now two more are joining: Algeria, which has already been approved, and Uruguay, which had been approved in the past but hadn't joined because it hadn't gone through an internal approval process.

Yes, because BRICS, for example, doesn't have the same — the same countries that participate in BRICS are not necessarily all inside the bank. Why? Because they are different institutions. Although the NDB, the New Development Bank, is a BRICS bank — because it is a BRICS bank — not all of its members are BRICS members. BRICS today has many more members than the bank. The bank is in the process of expanding its membership because the process of joining the bank is different from the process of joining BRICS. There are criteria that are approved by the highest board, which is the council of finance ministers of the member countries. They are the ones who approve entry, and they also authorize you to discuss a country's entry into the bank — them and the board of directors. The council of ministers is a kind of general assembly; the board of directors is a kind of board of administration, to put it in Brazilian terms. So we have today, already authorized by the bank's structures, by the board of directors, Algeria, and in the past they had authorized Uruguay. But Uruguay hadn't entered, and now Uruguay is entering with the election of Yamandú. I was there in Uruguay, and he committed that as soon as he took office, he would initiate the procedures. We have 17 membership applications. All 17 are in the discussion process at the bank, and often it's not enough for them to just apply. There's a whole protocol. I even travel to some of them. This year I think I'll have many trips, given that there are 17. But some have already submitted their applications. That means 17 — 17 means they submitted a letter or expressed in meetings, their high representatives expressed interest in joining. And they are all Global South countries. I won't name them because there's a confidentiality clause.

That's very good. You ask me why it happened. The bank even had its credit rating reduced because of this, because it wasn't accessing the dollar market — the public dollar market. From March 27, 2023 onward, immediately in April we went to market, and since then we've gone to market 14 times. We did what they call public issuances. We also did other types of issuances, for example, what's called a syndicated project, which involves a reasonable number of banks participating in the process, and we issue bonds. And also another type called, translating to Portuguese, a club deal — an agreement in a club with fewer banks. We also do several other things. In terms of always being in the market — you can't stop. Sixteen months is like having a shoe that fits everything but you can't walk in it. A bank that doesn't go to market is a bank that loses — it doesn't spend its own capital. So for us, this consolidation was very important. Because from March 27 until today, we have completely stable cash reserves. We have money to lend to our member countries. So we have no liquidity problem whatsoever anymore. The bank has completely overcome it. It was difficult, we had to work hard using the bank's resources and others that we brought in — other people who came with me. But it was very important, and the bank felt it was a great value.

Look, we've done quite a lot in Brazil. When I arrived here, Brazil participated with only 12% of the bank's disbursements. Now Brazil has reached 18%, which is an interesting figure because it's proportional to what it put into the bank. What did we do? The bank had given 2 billion dollars to all its members, and Brazil was the only country that had taken just one billion. When I arrived, I insisted on this loan because it was on very good terms — 30 years with very low interest rates. And I insisted that this be guaranteed, that Brazil could take those one billion dollars it hadn't taken, because it was very good money that allowed flexibility, since it was for post-COVID reconstruction. So it was one billion, then it was 1.7 billion dollars for BNDES, of which one billion for infrastructure and 500 million for climate. BNDES has that money and is investing it. Then, when Vice President Alckmin was here in China, we announced our project for Rio Grande do Sul, which included transfers to BRDE, the bank of the extreme south, transfers to BNDES from this money. We took a portion and put it toward Rio Grande do Sul from those 1.7 billion. But new money went to BRDE — 200 million dollars to invest in municipalities, not just one, but municipalities in the greater Porto Alegre area and the regions most affected by the floods. We also transferred funds to help Banco do Brasil with the reconstruction. Additionally, the bank has made several other contributions in Brazil. The state of Paraíba — we did a process. I'll even grab my little cheat sheet here, because we need it for so many things. What I wanted to highlight: for BDMG, we did a loan for the Minas Gerais Development Bank of 1.15 billion reais, or about 200 million dollars at today's exchange rate. For the state of Paraíba, we did 61 million dollars. For the municipality of Serra, we did 57.6 million for the power company CPFL. In São Paulo, it was 1.15 billion reais. And we still have several projects on the agenda.

Because we have two types of loans. According to our strategic plan, we have 70% in sovereign loans, which are taken by countries with sovereign guarantee. For example, BNDES would be a sovereign loan, because BNDES is controlled by the Brazilian government. And when it's not the federal government, COFIEX has to approve — the country approves the entity's right to take resources in strong currency, like state governments, municipalities. But above all, companies — we have a commitment to lend 30% in non-sovereign loans, which reflects the importance of private sector participation in all BRICS countries. So 30% — you see, we have several. CPFL is a company, Vale also took a loan. So you have a set of companies in Brazil and in other countries — here in China, in India, in South Africa. Currently the Russian Federation isn't taking loans because it's under sanctions, but it took loans before and did the same thing — sovereign and non-sovereign loans. Now there's a priority focus: for example, infrastructure, environment, energy transition. What this bank, as the name says — development — a development bank is different from a commercial bank. We have to focus on loans that have an impact on the development of countries. What is the risk for emerging market and developing countries? One risk is being condemned to being only a commodity exporter. You can be a commodity exporter and more — you should be, because commodities are important. There's no criticism of commodity exports. But you can't sustain yourself exclusively in this area. You also can't run the other risk of falling into the middle-income trap — a country that can't pass a certain threshold. So what does the bank focus on? Development. What do we consider development? First, no country develops without infrastructure. So we have to invest in logistics — ports, airports, roads, railways. Railways are a central element in all countries. Second, we have a commitment to sustainability. Investment and development must be sustainable to be stable, to allow us greater capacity to face everything that comes with climate change. We're seeing floods in Rio Grande do Sul, we're watching major wildfires. All of this is being seen. So we must have this commitment to sustainable investment, especially in actions against climate change and energy transition. Brazil is well-positioned in this regard. We have an exceptional energy structure. I'm from the era when we had about 80% — I'm not sure if it's a little more or less — of clean energy, hydroelectric energy, with our great dams supporting and providing backup for all renewable energy sources that come in, like solar and wind. So we have to support this growth of renewable energy in member countries' matrices. At the same time, we have to understand that while we have an exceptional situation, many don't have access to anything other than fossil fuels. So they should follow China's example to some extent, because China in a very short period is changing its energy matrix toward a more sustainable one. And more than that, China produces innovations. I read that China has a total decarbonization goal by 2060 — to become a net-zero country. This opens opportunities for a country like Brazil in the environmental field, reforestation, because these countries will need to offset emissions. What China is looking for is something else — sustainable energy sources. For example, China is very important in batteries. There's a whole discussion about using large batteries, because a car battery doesn't serve to store energy. They're looking for something called grid storage, which isn't the same as what we do in Brazil, where our large water reservoirs — the dams we built — are large energy storage reserves in the grid. China also uses fusion; it has great development in the fusion area. Being here in China is very good because you get a sense of where innovation is heading in the Global South. Additionally, the bank has another mission related to development. There is no development when you reach the Fourth Industrial Revolution — the technology revolution, information technologies, artificial intelligence, large data storage centers, computers that are always evolving. And here there's a great, disruptive evolution. If you can actually commercialize quantum computing energy — but I'll just talk about the technology that exists. A country can't catch up — it can't develop today if it doesn't access technology. Accessing technology isn't purely and simply transfer; it can be that, but it's also building your own capacity — what they call capacity building. Without international cooperation, it's very difficult. I even have information because we had the opportunity to meet two doctors here in Shanghai — a very important Brazil-China cooperation project in medicine and artificial intelligence is going to come out. This project may be somewhat anticipated. But let me finish this story about development. We need quality development, and we're here, as I was saying, in a country where this is a central issue today. The great development goal is what the Chinese government calls the development of new productive forces, which means applying science and technology to everything — in agriculture, in services, and above all in industry. And for BRICS countries, it's very important that we also have financing in this area. I'll give you the example you mentioned — the smart hospital. What is a smart hospital? We have something that I think we always have to talk about because it's a great achievement of the country itself, which is SUS, the Unified Health System, which must be universal, of quality, serving everyone. And it also needs to be an efficient, high-quality, affordable system. Why build a smart hospital? It's a smart hospital that we're building from the ground up. They told us — including those two doctors you saw — that it would be the first smart hospital built from scratch that they knew of here in China. And here you have many opportunities in this. Brazil made a partnership — the 37 areas we have partnership with China, from President Lula's visit, when President Xi visited Brazil for a state visit after the G20. That was a state visit to elevate our partnerships. One of them, in health, from those 37, is the smart hospital. What does it mean? We want the public system to have access to the most advanced technology, and it will also guarantee — the application of artificial intelligence in this area will also guarantee lower costs. Two things: better diagnostic precision, better exams, greater capacity for care, because the time it takes to treat an emergency starts to decrease. You start, for example, using it in an ambulance. I remember we had a big problem because SAMU is another great Brazilian innovation — both SAMU and SUS are the foundation of this. What happens if a patient enters the ambulance? What we want is for that patient to have immediate access, especially if they have an emergency, before arriving at the hospital — that they arrive at the hospital with the hospital already knowing everything about them and how to proceed with treatment. This will prevent deaths, increase the efficiency of SUS. So this project — a partnership between the NDB, the Brazilian federal government through SUS, the state government of São Paulo, the University of São Paulo — it's quite comprehensive. Brazil has — not just one, but several universities considered top-ranked, among the 50 or 60 best. One of them is USP, which is actually the highest-ranked. So we're going to start this process in a partnership between the Ministry of Science and Technology and the Ministry of Health, because the Ministry of Health is essential here. The minister came here, and Padilha, the new minister, also sent me a message using the internet, which is important because the federal government will provide the resources. Who takes the financing and pays for it is the federal government. The state of São Paulo contributes with all of USP's capacity and also with the building — the governor is delivering the building from the health secretariat for this project.

And what will happen with this project? I told you it's a pilot. Why is it a pilot? Because we don't want it only in São Paulo, and the bank liked it very much — that's why I said, we liked it very much because this project is within a vision of having this same type of smart hospital in the North, Northeast, South, and Central-West. In other words, we're going to regionalize it, because it's also a source of improvement in education, because it's related to research and development, and it's related to raising the standard of SUS and doing this for all of Brazil. That's the idea that the Ministry of Health, Minister Padilha, has been exploring with us in recent times, now that he's minister. Speaking of this — this is a very innovative project. Just to mention the doctors — one of them is Ludmila Lajar and the other is Stephany, whom I was able to meet here in Shanghai as well.