Zélia Cardoso de Mello

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Zélia Maria Cardoso de Mello (São Paulo, b. September 20, 1953 in São Paulo) served as Brazil's Minister of Economy from 1990 to 1991 under Fernando Collor de Mello (no relation). She was married to Brazilian comedian Chico Anysio, with whom she has two children, Rodrigo and Victoria. The couple divorced in 1998.

Zélia Cardoso de Mello worked in the academic, public and private sectors in Brazil. Her political career began in 1986 when Dilson Funaro, the Minister of Finance of Brazil, invited her to join his Economic Advisory Team as Director of the National Treasure Dept. In 1990 Cardoso de Mello was appointed the National Minister of Economy, Finance and Planning of Brazil under president Fernando Collor de Mello.

In 1995 she moved to New York and became a visiting scholar at the Institute of Latin America and Iberian Studies at Columbia University. Since 1998, Cardoso de Mello has served executive positions at several major financial advisory companies focused on Brazil, including Global Accessinvestments, Orix and Lily Pond Capital. Her academic career was entirely accomplished in the School of Business and Economics at the University of São Paulo, where she received her college degree, Ph.D., and served as university professor. She is currently a partner at New York-based Aquila Associates.

Contents 1 Finance minister 2 Plano Collor policies 3 See also 4 Notes 5 References 6 External links

[edit] Finance minister

As minister, Zélia was responsible for the implementation of the Plano Collor, which combined fiscal and trade liberalization with radical inflation stabilization measures.^[1]. A monetarist inflation stabilization was coupled with an industrial and foreign trade reform program, the Industrial and Foreign Trade Policy (English: Política Industrial e de Comércio Exterior), better known as PICE, and a privatization program dubbed the "National Privatization Program" (Portuguese: Programa Nacional de Desestatização), better known as the PND. The PICE was geared towards opening the Brazilian marketing to foreign competition while simultaneously fostering domestic innovation,^[2] whereas the PND was the first large-scale privatization program in Brazil, generating nearly US$4 billion for the government and privatizing 18 different state-owned enterprises.^[3]

According to Carlos Eduardo Carvalho, from Departamento de Economia da Pontifícia Universidade Católica de São Paulo ^[4]: The Collor Plan itself began to be formatted by the president-elects advisors at the end of December 1989, after his victory in the runoff election. The final draft was probably strongly influenced by a document discussed by the advisors of PMDB party candidate Ulysses Guimarães, and later by advisors of PT party candidate Luís Inácio Lula da Silva, during the period between the general election and the runoff. In spite of the differences in their general economic strategies, these competing candidates failed to develop their own stabilization policies at a time of rapid price increases and risk of hyperinflation during the second half of 1989. The proposal to block liquidity originated in academic debate and was imposed upon the main presidential candidacies.

[edit] Plano Collor policies

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Collor's official website credits the following as some of his administration's accomplishments while in power:^[5]

• Ended the moratorium on Brazil's $ 115 billion dollars foreign debt and began repayment negotiations.
• Abolished restrictions on nearly 800 specific imports
• Established a tariff reduction schedule
• Abolished price and wage indexes
• Signed the Assunción Treaty with Paraguay, Uruguay and Argentina to create Mercosur- a common market for South America.
• Began privatization of more than 70 government-run companies.
• Decreased the government payroll
• Decreased the fiscal deficit
• Created a monthly budgetary surplus

[edit] See also

• Plano Collor
• Fernando Collor de Mello

[edit] Notes

[edit] References

This article includes a list of references, related reading or external links, but its sources remain unclear because it lacks inline citations. Please improve this article by introducing more precise citations where appropriate. (July 2009)

• Joseph A. Page (1995), The Brazilians. Da Capo Press. ISBN 0201441918.
• Government biography (Portuguese language). Accessed August 15, 2005.
• Época magazine story (Portuguese language). Accessed August 15, 2005.

[edit] External links

• Collor´s Official web site The Collor Plan
• Interview to Revista Isto é Dinheiro (Portuguese)
• The good results of privatization, Revista Bovespa (Portuguese)
• Women in action, Revista Bovespa (Portuguese)

Preceded by Maílson da Nóbrega

Ministry of Finance (Brazil) March 15, 1990 - May 10, 1991

Succeeded by Marcílio Marques Moreira