Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff said Saturday that her country was "going well and will go better," after Standard & Poor's cut Brazil's rating to the lowest level for investment grade debt. "We are convinced of the absolute necessity of preserving the soundness of the macroeconomic fundamentals of the country," the president told an annual meeting of the Inter-American Development Bank at a resort in the north-east state of Bahia.
Rousseff warned against "hasty judgements, with hasty conclusions," apparently taking aim at Standard & Poor's, which on Monday lowered Brazil's credit rating to BBB-, the lowest level for investment grade debt, and called the outlook stable.
"Everyone knows that, in economics, reality always wins," said Rousseff, an economist by profession, adding that "speculation, evaluation and even political interests can obscure the objective view of the facts."
Rousseff admitted that Brazil, the world's seventh-largest economy, "has challenges to face and overcome, and there will always be new barriers to be removed."
But she said: "We can, however, be proud to have built a path for development, allowing us to say that Brazil is going well and will go better."