Brazil to Sell 13 State-Owned Firms : Economy: The government hopes to cut deficits, control inflation and spur growth. Many of the businesses lose money.

Brazilian President Fernando Collor de Mello signed a decree Thursday putting 13 government-owned corporations up for sale under a plan aimed at privatizing most of the country’s state enterprises.

The sale of shares in the first 13 companies will bring about $10 billion in revenue, the official news agency Radiobras said. Privatization is part of Collor’s program for eliminating government deficits, controlling inflation and stimulating economic growth.

Most corporations listed in Thursday’s decree are steel and petrochemical companies. One of them, the steel company Usiminas, earned $239 million in 1989, but many of the others operate in the red.

Brazil has more than 200 state enterprises, most of them created under the military government that ruled from 1964 to 1985. Together, they produce an annual deficit of more than $50 billion.

The government will auction off shares in the first 13 to be privatized during the coming months. To obligate banks, insurance companies and other financial institutions to buy shares, the government has begun requiring them to invest a percentage of their assets in Certificates of Privatization.

Those treasury certificates, which authorities have said will produce about $5 billion, may be used only to buy stock in privatized corporations.

Collor also signed a decree Thursday regulating a law, passed previously by the Congress, that creates the government privatization program.

The program is headed by Eduardo Modiano, president of the National Bank for Economic and Social Development.

Modiano said Thursday that privatization will help “prepare the Brazilian economy for a new cycle of growth.”

The country’s economy is expected to shrink by about 3% this year as Brazil adjusts to a severe austerity program imposed by Collor after taking office in March. The program has brought inflation down from more than 80% a month to about 10%.

The government reduced liquidity by freezing much of the money deposited in high-interest savings accounts and financial markets. The measure also served to reduce interest costs for the government’s domestic debt, since the debt was largely financed through financial markets.

Additional public spending cuts have been made by firing, retiring or furloughing about 200,000 government employees.

Meanwhile, Collor has continued to withhold payments on Brazil’s $115-billion foreign debt. Private foreign banks have received no significant interest payments for more than a year.

Officials have discussed the possibility of trading stock in privatized corporations for foreign debt. Brazilian law limits foreign investment in privatized corporations to one-third of total common stock and two-thirds of non-voting preferred stock.