|
Brazil's consumer price index rose 0.87% in April the highest monthly rate since last July (0,91%) according to the latest release from the Brazilian Institute of Geography and Statistics, IBGE. Last March the index increased 0.61%.
Inflation in the first four months of 2005 has reached 2.68%, more than half the 5.1% target set by government for the whole year, and 8.07% in the last twelve months.
In 2004 Brazil's inflation reached 7.6% which was 2.1 points above the official target although within the pre established "margin of tolerance".
Government inflation target for 2006 remains unchanged at 4.5% with a maximum tolerance of 6.5%.
April's inflationary surge was pushed by a 0.81% jump in food prices, well above the 0.26% of March, reports IBGE. Public transport also was a determining factor. A poll among leading companies in the private sector forecasts an annual inflation of 6.3%.
Prices continue rising faster than government estimates, increasing investor fears that the Central Bank will continue its policy of hiking interest rates to rein in inflation.
The basic Central Bank interest rate or Selic, currently stands at 19.5%, but market estimates indicate it could drop to 18% by December 2005 and to 15.5% by the end of 2006.
GDP growth estimates remain at 3.6% in 2005 and 3.5% in 2006 with a trade surplus of 34 billion US dollars and 28 billion US dollars. Private direct investment is forecasted to reach 15 billion US dollars in 2005 and a similar figure the following year.
Current account surplus has been estimated in 9 billion US dollars in 2005 and 3,6 billion in 2006.
LatAm Surplus
Latinamerica and the Caribbean countries trade surplus with the United States increased 14.7% in March reaching 8,36 billion US dollars, reported Wednesday the US Commerce Department.
During the first quarter the surplus totalled 22,48 billion US dollars compared to 17,19 billion in the same period of 2004.
Mexico's surplus increased from 3,67 billion US dollars in February to 4,26 billion in March, totalling in the first quarter 10,8 billion compared to 10,4 billion in 2004.
Argentina's surplus on the other hand dropped from 43 million US dollars in February to 4 million in March, accumulating 162 million US dollars in the first quarter of 2005 compared to a virtual equilibrium in the same period a year ago.
Brazil kept increasing its trade surplus with the US from 640 million US dollars in February to 749 million in March totalling 2,3 billion in the first quarter, almost six times the 2004 first quarter's 476 million US dollars.
Venezuela one of the US main oil suppliers kept a burgeoning surplus which expanded from 1,8 billion US dollars in February to 2,4 billion last March. First quarter surplus in 2005 was 6 billion compared to 4,6 billion in 2004.
However Chile has seen its surplus drop from 183 million US dollars in February to 78 million in March totalling 613 million in the first quarter compared to 405 million US dollars in the same period a year ago.
Colombia's surplus surged from 190 million in February to 229 million US dollars last March, with the first quarter reaching 634 million compared to 519 million last year.
This article appeared originally in Mercopress.
www.mercopress.com
 |
Subscribe to this comment's feed
The small, coastal town of Condé is located just a twenty minute's drive from João Pessoa, the capital of Paraíba. The Northeast of Brazil has historically been a place of encounter and mixing between peoples. For millenia groups of indigenous people fished, farmed, migrated and sometimes fought along this large, fertile area. 
The Brazilian diplo-MÁ-cia (bad diplomacy) carries on its accelerated course towards the non-acknowledgment of human rights, although sometimes it takes pleasure in saying that it does precisely the opposite. The visit of Iran's president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, is another example of a diplomatic omission that verges on hypocrisy. 
On July 4, 2006, representatives of Argentina, Brazil, Paraguay and Uruguay met in Caracas to sign the protocol for the entrance of Venezuela into the Southern Common Market (Mercosur). After two and a half years, the protocol was approved by the legislative bodies of Argentina and Uruguay, and as of now it may be only days away from being ratified by the continent's economic megalith, Brazil. 
Some sectors of the fight against AIDS have suggested that Thabo Mbeki, the former president of South Africa, committed genocide through his absence from the fight against the illness in his country throughout his two terms. 
One hundred and eleven years after Brazil abolished slavery, the number of workers deprived of their freedom is still huge. They raise cattle, produce charcoal, sugar cane or timber. Some of them, most undocumented Bolivians, work in basements of small apparel factories in São Paulo and other metropolis. 
On November 7, 2009 a few friends and I had an opportunity to take a look inside a Brazilian jail outside the city of Rio de Janeiro. We were able to take some amateur footage of our experience on video (see link below). It's no surprise, of course, that the typical Brazilian jail lacks some of the functionality of those in North America or Europe, but our experience that day was quite shocking. 
Depletion of the Amazon Rainforest is not a new concern facing environmentalists, biologists, ecologists, and a growing number of the Amazonian indigenous peoples. For decades they have feared for the fate of the world's most biologically diverse and species-rich hothouse. 
Geisy Arruda made history this week in Brazil, but for all the wrong reasons. What began as a poorly planned fashion statement has become a worldwide tale. Geisy decided to wear a pink mini-dress to her private college in São Paulo state, and after that, all hell broke loose. 
The push of vigilante groups in Rio de Janeiro's favelas (shantytowns) in the last three years is the most important and alarming information of the just-released study by the Rio de Janeiro University's Violence Research Center (Nupev-Uerj). 
A dispute over drug trafficking territory in Rio de Janeiro has intensified lately, leaving in its wake unprecedented acts of violence, such as the downing of a police helicopter in the northern zone of the city on October 17. Three policemen died and another two were injured. This event has drawn the attention of the international media, who are raising the issue of public security for the 2016 Olympics to be held in Rio.