	brazil anti inflation plan limps to anniversary inflation plan initially hailed at home and abroad as the saviour of the economy is limping towards its first anniversary amid soaring prices widespread shortages and a foreign payments crisis announced last february the plan froze prices fixed the value of the new cruzado currency and ended widespread indexation of the economy in a bid to halt the country s pct inflation rate but within a year the plan has all but collapsed the situation now is worse than it was although there was inflation at least the economy worked a leading bank economist said the crumbling of the plan has been accompanied by a dramatic reversal in the foreign  account in and brazil s annual  surpluses had been sufficient to cover the billion dlrs needed to service its billion dlr foreign debt for the first nine months of all seemed to be on target for a repeat with monthly surpluses averaging one billion dlrs but as exports were diverted and imports increased to avoid further domestic shortages the  surplus plunged to mln dlrs in october and since then has averaged under mln reuter 
