The rate remains at its highest level since January 2017, when it was also at 13.75% per year. This was the fourth consecutive time that the Central Bank has not changed the rate, which has remained at this level since August.
Previously, the Copom had raised the Selic rate 12 times in a row, in a cycle that began amid rising food, energy and fuel prices.
From March to June 2021, the Copom raised the rate by 0.75 percentage points at each meeting.
In early August of the same year, the Central Bank began to increase the Selic rate by 1 point at each meeting.
With rising inflation and worsening tensions in the financial market, the Selic rate was raised by 1.5 points from October 2021 to February 2022.
After meeting with German Chancellor Olaf Scholz, President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva stated that Brazil wants to change some terms of the trade agreement between the European Union and Mercosur.
Still, the PT member estimated that the negotiations will be concluded by the end of the semester.
“We will work very hard so that we can make this agreement happen. But some things have to change,” Lula declared in a press conference after the meeting with Scholz at the Planalto Palace. “We will close this EU-Mercosur agreement, if everything goes well, by the end of the semester,” he added.
In his speech, Lula spoke of finding a middle ground that “will improve the lives of those who feel harmed.”
“We will sit at the table in the most open way possible,” the PT member stated. According to the president, the issue of government purchases is very important to Brazil, and it would be difficult to give up. “Government purchases are a way to grow small industries,” he assessed, alongside Scholz.
The EU-Mercosur agreement is stuck in ratification in the member countries of the European bloc.
Lula and the OECD
The president also stated that Brazil is interested in joining the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), but negotiating the terms.
“Brazil is interested in participating in the OECD. What we want to know is what Brazil’s role in the OECD would be,” the president declared at the Planalto Palace after meeting with the German Chancellor, Olaf Scholz. “We are willing to discuss it again and we want to know the conditions,” he added.
Source: Canal Rural