LatinNews Daily - 1 August 2024

*The monetary policy committee (Copom) of Brazil’s central bank (BCB) has maintained the benchmark interest rate (Selic) at 10.50%. This marks the second consecutive meeting in which Copom’s members unanimously decided to hold the rate steady. Copom’s latest statement conveyed a cautious tone again and stressed that “eventual future changes” to the Selic would be “determined by a firm commitment to reaching the inflation target”. The BCB’s 2024 annual inflation target is 3.00% +/-1.5. The annual inflation rate in June, according to the national statistics institute (Ibge), stood at 4.23%. According to the latest weekly projections of private sector economists and analysts surveyed by the BCB, annual inflation is forecast to close the year at 4.10%, up from their forecast of 4.00% from one month earlier. The maintenance of the Selic is likely to further inflame the tensions between the BCB and the ruling Partido dos Trabalhadores (PT), which took to social media yesterday to repeat its criticisms of the BCB president, Roberto Campos Neto, accusing him of “suffocating” the Brazilian economy.