Brasília, July 30, 2003 (Agência Brasil - ABr) - Interest rates on special checking experienced a slight decline in June, from May's annual rate of 177.6% to 177%. It was the second straight decline. The rates hit their highest level in April, 178.5%. These data were provided, Tuesday (29), by the head of the Economic Department of the Central Bank (BC), Altamir Lopes, when he released the monthly report on "Monetary Policy and Credit Operations of the Financial System."
There was also a 1.1% decline in interest rates charged for loans, from 57.8% to 56.7%, sustaining the downward trend observed since March, when the annual rate stood at 58%. According to Lopes, the most pronounced reduction occurred in the cost of personal loans, for which the annual interest rate fell from 83.7% to 81.4%, while, for firms, the reduction was from 39.1% to 38.6%.
According to the BC economist, a slight drop was registered in the spread (the difference between what bank pay to obtain funds and what they charge to lend them), from 14.8% to 14.6% for personal loans and 60% to 58.5% for business loans. For Lopes, these trends "reflect, to a small degree, the stability that has existed in the credit operations of the financial system, since February." The total volume of operations came to R$ 381.129 billion in June, only 0.3% more than in May. For the first half of the year, the growth amounted to 0.7%. According to analysts, this behavior reveals that "the market is moving sideways."
The ratio of total loans to the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) rose from 24.4% to 24.7%, due largely to the favorable evolution of financial operations with the agricultural sector, in which they grew 3.2% during the month and aggregated a cumulate total of 37.2% over the past 12 months. In June, 2002, these loans amounted to R$ 27.942 billion; last month, the total was R$ 38.345 billion. Housing loans also grew, 0.7%, attaining a total of R$ 22.337 billion.
The BC's Economic Department also informed that the monetary base closed the month with a balance of R$ 63.8 billion. In comparison with May, June's balance represents a 2% decline, but for the year, there has been a cumulative increase of 25.9%. The currency balance (money in circulation) remained stable, at R$ 38.8 billion, but bank reserves fell 4.8%, closing the month at R$ 25 billion.
Operations with Federal Government titles (notes, bonds, etc.) suffered a R$ 990 million contraction in June. Net emissions of Federal Treasury titles on the primary market amounted to R$ 9.5 billion, against R$ 2.7 billion in redemptions of Central Bank titles, while, on the secondary market, the results of operations were responsible for an expansion of R$ 5.8 billion. (DAS)
