MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

Stable low inflation and expansion forecasted by Brazilian financial market

The figures reaffirm the market's expectation that the Central bank will keep the benchmark interest rate at its current annual level of 6.5%, the lowest in history

Brazil's financial market has cut its forecast of the country's inflation rate from 3.94 to 3.87 percent for 2019 and kept the rate at 4% for 2020, the Central Bank of Brazil reported. According to the Focus survey conducted by the bank among Brazil's main financial institutions, the forecasts are within the official target of 4.25 percent, with a tolerance margin between 2.75 percent and 5.75 percent.

The figures reaffirm the market's expectation that monetary authorities will keep the benchmark interest rate at its current annual level of 6.5%, the lowest in history.

Bank analysts estimate that the central bank's monetary policy committee will not make changes to the basic interest rate Selic throughout the year.

For 2020, the financial market expects increases in the Selic, which would reach 8% at the end of the year.

Meanwhile, the gross domestic product's (GDP) growth will remain at 2.5%, both for this year and the next. The monetary exchange rate will remain at 3.7 Reais per U.S. dollar at the end of 2019 and 3.75% U.S. dollar at the end of 2020.

As for the trade balance of export and import, the forecast is for a positive balance of 51 billion U.S. dollars in 2019 and 48 billion U.S. dollars in 2020.

The report forecasts that the influx of foreign direct investments in Brazil will hit 80 billion U.S. dollars this year and 82.44 billion U.S. dollars next year.