EMERGING MARKETS-Brazil currency hits 2002 low on budget jitters
SAO PAULO, Sept 2 (Reuters) - Brazil's currency tumbled to its weakest level since 2002 on Wednesday as expectations of a growing fiscal deficit fed fears that the country would lose its investment-grade credit rating.
The real shed 2 percent to trade at 3.76 per U.S. dollar, as President Dilma Rousseff's economic team pressed Brazilian lawmakers to pass measures that would reverse a primary budget deficit next year.
"Both politically and economically, it's a really tough situation. The dollar is likely to keep rising," said Reginaldo Siaca, head of currencies at the TOV brokerage in Sao Paulo.
He also said the exchange rate may approach 4 reais per dollar in the weeks ahead.
Elsewhere in the region, Colombia's peso fell 1.8 percent, slipping back toward record lows in a volatile session for the price of oil, the country's main export, which rallied after Colombian markets closed. Crude prices are hovering above five-year lows.
Latin American stocks were generally positive, however, as Chinese brokerages promised measures to support the country's battered financial markets, which have triggered a global rout in recent weeks.
Brazil's benchmark Bovespa stock index rose 2.14 percent on Wednesday, rebounding from a three-day slide with a boost from blue-chip exporters. JBS SA, the world's biggest meat exporter, jumped 8 percent and iron ore giant Vale SA gained 5.5 percent.
The 19-commodity Thomson Reuters/Core Commodity CRB Index , a global benchmark, gained 0.4 percent after falling as much as 1.7 percent in early trading.
(Reporting by Brad Haynes and Bruno Federowski, additional reporting by Nelson Bocanegra in Bogota, editing by G Crosse)
