President Michel Temer, Finance Minister Henrique Meirelles, and Planning Minister Dyogo Oliveira will hold a final meeting this Monday (Aug. 14) to decide how much the government is going to widen the primary deficit target for 2017 and 2018. In a joint statement last Thursday (10), the two ministries said any decision will be announced immediately as made.

The primary deficit is a negative balance of government accounts excluding public debt interest. Originally the deficit target had been set at $49 billion for this year and $40 billion for the next, but a combination of decreasing tax revenue and lost revenues has made the original target harder to meet.