Brazil's Rousseff says whatever it takes to do for fiscal target: Bloomberg

SAO PAULO (Reuters) - Brazil's government will do whatever it takes to meet its 2015 fiscal target, President Dilma Rousseff said on Tuesday in an interview with Bloomberg News. “We will carry out a huge cut” to this year’s budget, she told the agency. "I will do everything to meet" the target, she added. Rousseff started her second term in January with a concerted effort to stave off a credit rating downgrade after years of lavish spending failed to spur economic growth. Highlighting the challenges she faces, data on Tuesday showed Brazil's primary budget deficit in the 12 months through February rose to 0.7 percent of GDP, drifting farther away from the target for a 1.2 percent surplus in 2015. Rousseff's new finance member Joaquim Levy said on Tuesday that Brazil is prepared to raise taxes further if revenues are not enough to meet the target. Rousseff told Bloomberg that spending cuts like postponing some expenditures and reducing administrative costs would account for a large part of the adjustments needed to narrow the budget shortfall. (Reporting by Caroline Stauffer; Editing by Bernard Orr)