Stênio Ribeiro
Reporter - Agência Brasil

Brasília - The director of economic policy in the Central Bank (BC), Afonso Bevilacqua, reaffirmed today (29) that inflation shows "unmistakable signs" of declining. Consequently, the bank's forecast for the Broad Consumer Price Index (IPCA) was lowered to 5%, below this year's official inflation target of 5.1%.

Bevilacqua pointed out, however, that this projection depends upon the annualized benchmark interest rate's being maintained at its current level of 19.50%. This perspective is not shared by the financial market, which operates under the assumption that the rate will fall to 18% by the end of the year. In the bank's view, this increase the inflation rate by 0.2 percentage points to 5.2%.

The director of the BC presented this information today (19) during an announcement of the quarterly report on inflation, which underscores that the cumulatative IPCA between January and August was 3.59%, the lowest figure registered for the period since 1998. The tendency, he said, is for inflation to remain low in consequence of reduced uncertainties in the macroeconomic market.

Translation: David Silberstein