Brazil state-controlled oil company Petrobras reported a net loss of 1.35 billion Reais (some 633 million dollars at the current exchange rate) in the second quarter, attributing the result to the depreciation of the Real relative to the dollar.
Luciano Coutinho president of Brazil’s state development bank BNDES, said the country has benefited from the recent weakening of its currency and a further drop would be better, according to newspaper Folha de Sao Paulo.
The Brazilian Real fell to a new three-year low after briefly erasing its decline as the central bank sold currency swap contracts for the second time in three trading sessions, holding two auctions on Tuesday.
Brazil’s Real tumbled to 2 per dollar for the first time in almost three years as Finance Minister Guido Mantega said the exchange rate doesn’t worry the government, opening expectations the currency may fall further.
Having a floor of 1.80 Real to the US dollar is no great thing, but it is a target to sustain said Brazil Development, Industry and Foreign Trade minister Fernando Pimentel referring to the latest announcements to promote Brazilian industry battered by a strong currency and massive inflow of ‘cheap’ imports.
Brazil extended on Monday a 6% tax on foreign loans and bonds issued abroad by local companies to include lending with duration of as long as five years, the third measure taken this month to weaken the Real. Since March 1, the currency has weakened 5.6%.
Brazil’s Central bank on Wednesday surprised analysts by accelerating the pace of interest rate cuts, bringing borrowing costs to 9.75%, below 10% for only the second time on record as it seeks to revive growth.
The Brazilian economy last year registered its second-worst performance since 2003 as higher borrowing costs and a currency that rallied to a 12-year high led it to under-perform emerging-market peers China and India.
Brazil’s economy grew at its fastest pace in 19 months in November, reversing a three-month contraction, as a recovery in consumer spending helped Latin America’s largest economy shrug off a global slowdown. Yields on interest rate futures rose.
The size of an annual start-of-year spending freeze that the Brazilian government is set to announce by early February will offer hints on how far President Dilma Rousseff and her economic advisers want to cut interest rates.