Copom reduces basic interest rate to 9% per year.

Agency Brazil – The Monetary Policy Committee (Copom) of the Central Bank today (18) repeated the 0,75 percentage point (pp) adjustment applied in March and unanimously reduced, without bias, the basic interest rate (Selic) from 9,75% to 9% per year.

In the minutes of the previous meeting of the Central Bank's board of directors (BC), the 0,75 pp reduction had already been signaled. Most financial analysts also expressed this expectation in the Focus bulletin, released last Monday (16), by the monetary authority.

This was the sixth consecutive reduction in the benchmark interest rate since the end of August last year, when the Selic rate was at 12,5% ​​and the Copom (Monetary Policy Committee) cut it by 0,5 percentage points, initiating the process of easing monetary policy. The decision divided the Central Bank's board at the time and surprised most financial analysts, who had predicted that interest rates would remain unchanged after five increases, starting in January 2011, when the Selic rate was at 10,75%.

Now, the market is working with the expectation that the Central Bank will keep the Selic rate stable for the rest of the year, in order to assess the effects of lower interest rates in an environment without inflationary pressures, despite concerns about the international economic crisis. A more in-depth reading of the internal and external economic scenario, however, will only be known with the release of the minutes of today's meeting next Thursday (26).