Brazil’s economic situation has taken the news for a long time and this never-ending debate on what the government should do has driven investors away from the mess the country has become. It’s not unusual to read about how every single economic institution has worsened their forecasts for the Brazilian economy throughout these first months of the year.

With many barriers surrounding the social security reform, a legal act shines some light at Brazil’s dim future.

This legal act called provisional measure, or PM for short, is a measure that allows the president to enact laws without the approval of the National Congress – if there are urgency and relevance to its enactment. This specific one issued exactly a day before the International Workers’ Day, can help Brazil skip some positions in the WBG’s Ease of Doing Business Index.

"We are taking the government off the entrepreneurs' shoulders"

As the Brazilian president, Jair Bolsonaro stated, this ‘Economic Freedom PM’ was enacted to “take the State off of the entrepreneurs’ shoulders”. One of the biggest weights pulled off them was the withdrawal of dozens of legal requirements to open a business on private property; including one that allowed public agents to rule over prices.

Also, other regulations that were declared outdated and/or affected the development of new products, services and businesses were withdrawn along with every bureaucracy surrounding innovation and startups.

This all may sound extremely beneficial for the Brazilian economy, don’t get me wrong, it is. But this is not the most important section of it, long term-wise. The free interpretation of private contracts was abolished and the isonomia was established. Now, contracts have more power and are absolute over any type of interpretation that any private parts or judges might have.

And believe me or not, there was no such thing as equality of law – isonomia – in Brazil. Everything was subject to interpretations or context, which increased inequality and favoured those who either had money or were friends with the government. After this PM, decisions shall follow what was previously stated in other cases under the same circumstances, finally putting an end to shady court decisions and unfair advantages to some businessmen.

But there’s still a question that remains: Is it enough? Is it enough to keep the Brazilian economy safe for the next few years? Well, it just might. Brazil’s in a situation where it needs investors so that it won’t go bankrupt, but it also needs to push this foreseeable bankruptcy away to have investors. This PM and the social security reform shall bring at least some of them to the so-called Country of the Future, and they might just make it.

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Felipe provides his opinions on subjects such as technology and business.

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