|
Brazilian monetary authorities hope the 11 will be the number that will do the trick. After ten consecutive cuts in the Selic - Brazil's benchmark lending rate - without a visible improvement in the economy, the Brazilian Central Bank's Monetary Policy Committee (Copom) has once again lowered the rate by 0.5% from 14.25% to 13.75%.
The cuts started in September of last year and since then interests have fallen a full 6%. At that first reduction in September the Selic lowered from 19.75% to 19.5%. There was no surprise. The market was expecting this reduction, according to a report released earlier this week by Brazil's Central Bank. Despite the new cut, however, Brazil is still the world champion in high interest rates. Discounted the projected inflation for the next 12 months, the country will still have real overnight interbank rates of 9.3% a year. Turkey, the second in the list of countries with the steepest interest rates, has a real rate of 6.2%. So, Brazil would need to cut more than 3% just to get rid of its number one position in the ranking. Copom will still have a final meeting this year on November 28 when their members are expected to lower the Selic another 0.25%. According to Getúlio Vargas Foundation's (FGV) economist Salomão Quadros, a larger reduction in the Selic at this time, just 11 days before the presidential election might have been misinterpreted putting the Central Bank's reputation at risk. "The Central Bank has already given proof of independence and is not going to run the risk of losing this reputation," said Quadros in a interview to Reuters. As for inflation, experts are betting Brazil won't exceed 3% this year and 4.2% in 2007. The official inflation target for 2006 is 4.5% with a tolerance margin of plus or minus two points. Analysts also don't fear any pressure on prices due to a heated economy. In the second quarter the country's GDP was 1.2%. The Brazilian government has reduced its growth forecast from 4% to 3.5% for the year. But economists are expecting more like 3% or less.
 |
Subscribe to this comment's feed
Brazil received a huge boost in its international image with its selection as the host of the 2016 Olympics, but it was really just the cherry on top of the overall recognition of the country's ascension to the ranks of one of the world's most important countries. Now, as it finally takes its place on the world scene, there has been a great deal of concern about what kind of image Brazil hopes to project, now that the world is really paying attention. 
The only good thing to say about the visit to Brazil of Iran's president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, on Monday November 23, is that it was mercifully short and lasted less than 24 hours. Ahmadinejad had his picture taken being hugged by president Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva who gave him a warm welcome and said Iran had every right to develop nuclear energy for peaceful purposes. 
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.