6.5 percent

[Michael Pollak]

I'm always jolted when I read that Brazil promised the IMF to produce a
primary fiscal surplus of 3.75 percent of GDP, and that only under the
rosiest of future scenarios will even that turn out to be enough.

But then just in passing, in reading an article on the Turkish elections,
I notice that Turkey, which is in much worse shape economically than
Brazil, has contracted in its IMF programme to a primary fiscal surplus of
6.5 percent of GDP.  Unbelievable.

Michael