Weekly Report - 04 August 2016 (WR-16-30)

COLOMBIA | Central bank increases interest rates. On 31 July Colombia’s Central Bank (Banrep) decided to increase the benchmark interest rate by 25 basis points to 7.75%. Banrep’s board of directors explained in a press release that this decision was taken because of persistently high levels of inflation. Two of the main inflation indicators, the consumer price index and the average core inflation, sharply increased in June respectively reaching 8.6% and 6.5%, well above Banrep’s target of 3%.