FILE PHOTO 8SEP98 - Finance Minister Pedro Malan faces the press at a news conference on September 8, 1998. Malan and the government finance team announced new fiscal measures in Brasilia December 30 to compensate for recent setbacks in its budget austerity drive, seen as crucial to staving off the threat of an Asian-style currency collapse. The government announced a financial transactions tax to compensate for the rejection by Congress of a key pension reform measure that could have given Brazil a primary budget surplus. The government will also trim its already tight 1999 budget and raise a financial operations tax.

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