Brazil’s Large Fiscal Gap Shows Hurdles to Balancing 2024 Budget

Brazil posted the biggest budget gap for the month of December since at least 1997, plunging public accounts deeper into the red and complicating the government’s drive to shore up its finances this year.

The central government posted a primary deficit of 230.5 billion reais ($46.7 billion) for all of 2023, according to Treasury data published Monday, a drastic change from the 46.4 billion surplus recorded the year prior. For December, the budget gap, which excludes interest payments, hit 116.1 billion reais.

President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva has been pushing for more expenditures, heightening investor skepticism on his ...