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Reuters
4 days ago
- Business
- Reuters
Brazil inflation hits 5.3%, central bank set to hold rates next week
SAO PAULO, July 25 (Reuters) - Brazil's inflation remained well above the central bank's target range in its mid-July reading, official data showed on Friday, as policymakers gather next week for a meeting at which they are widely expected to hold interest rates at a two-decade high. Inflation in Latin America's largest economy hit 5.30% in the 12 months through mid-July, statistics agency IBGE said, up from 5.27% a month earlier and slightly above the 5.26% expected by economists in a Reuters poll. Brazil's central bank targets inflation at 3%, plus or minus 1.5 percentage points, and policymakers have pledged to bring it back to that level. The bank delivered 450 basis points in interest rate hikes between September and June, taking the benchmark Selic rate to 15%, the highest since July 2006. It signaled last month a "very prolonged" pause to assess the effects of the hikes. "The mid-month inflation figures give policymakers no reason to consider raising rates again," said Capital Economics' emerging markets economist Kimberley Sperrfechter, who expects conditions to allow for rate cuts around the turn of the year. The central bank's rate-setting committee, known as Copom, is scheduled to meet on July 29 and 30. In the month to mid-July alone, consumer prices as measured by the IPCA-15 index rose 0.33%, up from 0.26% in the previous month. The index had been expected to rise 0.30%, according to the median forecast in a Reuters poll. The monthly increase was driven by higher housing costs as electricity prices climbed, IBGE said, as well as higher transport prices, with airfares jumping. Closely watched food and beverage prices, however, dropped for the second straight month. "Today's result will not influence Copom's decision," Inter senior economist Andre Valerio said. "It should keep interest rates unchanged, reaffirm its commitment to meeting the inflation target, and offer no indication of when it might begin a rate-cutting cycle."
Reuters
10-07-2025
- Business
- Reuters
Brazil's monthly inflation slows, annual rate remains above target
SAO PAULO, July 10 (Reuters) - Brazil's monthly inflation slowed for the fourth time in a row in June, but the annual rate ticked up and remained well above the official goal, data showed on Thursday, prompting the central bank to release a letter to justify missing the target. Consumer prices as measured by the benchmark IPCA index rose 0.24% in June, government statistics agency IBGE said, down from the 0.26% increase reported in the previous month but above the 0.20% rise expected by economists polled by Reuters. Prices were up 5.35% in the 12 months through June, IBGE added, exceeding the 5.32% registered in May. Economists had also expected the June rate to come in at 5.32%. Brazil's central bank has an inflation target of 3%, plus or minus a margin of 1.5 percentage points, known as a "tolerance interval", which was exceeded for the ninth consecutive month. Central bank governor Gabriel Galipolo released an open letter to the country's monetary council later in the day to justify missing the target, as per Brazilian rules. Galipolo reaffirmed that the bank is committed to bringing the rate back to the goal after policymakers last month hiked interest rates to 15%, the highest since July 2006, and signaled they would keep them steady for a prolonged period. "The central bank has taken the necessary steps to ensure that inflation returns to the range defined for the tolerance interval and reaches the inflation target of 3.00%," he wrote. In the letter, Galipolo added the central bank expects the accumulated inflation rate over 12 months to return to the tolerance interval from the end of the first quarter of 2026. "There's little in the Brazilian June CPI print that changes our view that last month's hike marked the end to Copom's tightening cycle," Capital Economics emerging markets economist Kimberley Sperrfechter said. "But a lot will now depend on how the trade dispute with the U.S. plays out and what happens to the real."
Reuters
08-07-2025
- Business
- Reuters
Brazil's retail sales miss forecasts, fall for second straight month
SAO PAULO, July 8 (Reuters) - Retail sales volumes in Brazil fell unexpectedly in May from the previous month, data from statistics agency IBGE showed on Tuesday, corroborating views of an economic slowdown after industrial production also slipped in the period. Sales in Latin America's largest economy were down 0.2% in May from April, IBGE said, following a revised 0.3% decline in the previous month. Economists in a Reuters poll expected an increase of 0.2%. IBGE researchers noted that not even Mother's Day, typically a boost for Brazil's retail sector, was enough to prevent the second straight monthly drop, which came after a strong start to 2025 that saw sales hit a record high in March. Brazil's economy has been providing signs of cooling lately amid elevated borrowing costs. The central bank in June raised interest rates by 25 basis points to 15%, the highest since July 2006, in a bid to curb sticky inflation. "The May retail sales report, in our opinion, underscores a period of a soft patch in economic activity throughout the second quarter," JPMorgan economists Vinicius Moreira and Cassiana Fernandez wrote in a note to clients. Three of the eight core groups surveyed by IBGE - personal and household items, books and fuel - posted negative results in the month, the agency said. On a year-over-year basis, sales grew 2.1% in May, compared to expectations for a 2.4% increase in the Reuters poll. "Retail sales are clearly losing momentum," said Andres Abadia, chief Latin America economist at Pantheon Macroeconomics. "The data suggest the sector is no longer defying the drag from tighter financial conditions."
Reuters
04-07-2025
- Business
- Reuters
Producer prices in Brazil fall to the lowest in almost two years
SAO PAULO, July 4 (Reuters) - Brazil's producer price index (PPI) fell 1.29% in May, reaching the lowest level since 2023, statistics agency IBGE said on Friday. Producer prices in May contracted from a 0.12% drop in the previous month, IBGE said in a statement, marking the sharpest fall this year and the biggest decline since a 2.72% drop in June 2023. May's data also marks a fourth straight month in the negative. May saw a downward trend across most of the industry, according to IBGE, which added that so-called intermediate goods - products used in production such as iron ore and sugar - were the main driver in May. IBGE's producer price index manager Murilo Alvim noted that lower commodity prices had contributed, resulting a lower cost of production, while a stronger Brazilian real had also helped reduce costs in some sectors for goods traded in U.S. dollars. Since the start of 2025, producer prices in Latin America's largest economy shrank 1.97%, while in the accumulated reading for the 12 months through May hit 5.78%. Brazil's central bank targets inflation at 3% plus or minus 1.5 percentage points. Despite slowing down more than expected in May, inflation in the country still remains at 5.32% in the 12 months through May, IBGE data showed. Even as prices have dipped, Brazil's central bank last month hiked its benchmark interest rate to 15% - its highest level in almost 20 years.
France 24
25-06-2025
- Sport
- France 24
'You try not to bump into things:' blind sailing in Rio
He navigated confidently, despite not being able to see his stunning surroundings, including Rio's iconic Sugarloaf mountain. "You are being guided by a blind man!" Araujo, who lost his sight shortly after birth due to excess oxygen in his incubator, told his fellow sailors jokingly. Araujo was one of five Brazilians with visual or hearing disabilities who were shown the ropes on a yacht recently during a three-day sailing course run by the Nas Mares environmental organization. The rookie mariners were first schooled on vessels in Rio's main marina before testing their chops in Guanabara, the big natural harbor at the heart of Rio. As a para skateboarder, Araujo, 31, knows a thing or two about trying to stay upright. But sailing is "very different," he said, adding: "I never imagined myself being skipper of a boat." A year before it hosted the Olympic Games and Paralympics in 2016, Brazil passed an Inclusion of People with Disabilities Act aimed at eliminating hurdles to accessing transport, housing, services, education and sport. Latin America's biggest country also tackled the issue of funding by allocating 0.87 percent of all lottery funds to paralympic sport. Eduardo Soares, a 44-year-old physical education teacher from Sao Paulo who took part in the free sailing course, said the improvements had been life-changing. "Over the past 10 years, things have become much easier," Soares, who was born with a visual disability, said. Steering by sound, smell, touch Some 6.5 million of Brazil's 210 million citizens are visually impaired and 2.3 million have hearing disabilities, according to the IBGE statistics institute. While many wealthy countries, including Australia, Britain, France and the United States, have sailing associations for the blind or partially sighted, few in Latin America get the chance to skipper a boat. Araujo, a lover of extreme sports, said sailing was a way of combatting the isolation of people with disabilities, many of whom "don't like to try new things." His heightened sense of hearing, smell and touch made him and his crew particularly receptive to non-visual stimuli on the boat, including the direction of the wind and the vessel's vibrations. "My sensory faculties helped me to keep the boat on course," he said with pride. Juliana Poncioni Mota, director of Nas Mares, said the idea of offering the classes came when she was at sea with a blind, 13-year-old boy. She caught herself trying to describe the beauty of their surroundings for him in visual terms. "It led me to rethink how to... translate what I see for someone who doesn't have that perception (sight)," she said. Because her monohull is not adapted for people with disabilities she and her fellow sailing instructors describe in detail to each participant the location and characteristics of the helm, the mast, the boom and sails. A sign language interpreter conveys the instructions to a trainee with a hearing disability. Then touch is the key to getting the hang of things. The apprentices explore all the boat's instruments by hand, as well as a scale model of the vessel and of a humpback whale, lest they come across one of the enormous cetaceans which migrate to Rio's coast between June and August to breed. For Rodrigo Machado, a 45-year-old former Paralympic swimmer who was making his sailing debut, taking the helm involves "working it out in your mind, without seeing" which, he said, is what the visually impaired do every day. "On the street, you try not to bump into things, it's normal," he said. On this outing, much to their disappointment, the seamen heard no whale song coming across the underwater microphone. But they all vowed to soon get their feet wet again.
