Brazil’s central bank left its key interest rate unchanged at a nine-year high for the third straight meeting late Wednesday.
The monetary policy committee decided to hold its key Selic rate at 14.25 percent. Two members voted to hike the rate by 50 basis points, while other six members voted to keep it on hold.
Inflation rose to a 12-year high of 9.93 percent in October. At the same time, the economy entered a technical recession in the second quarter.
The increase in inflation has broken the consensus on the committee and sparked a debate on whether further tightening is needed, Neil Shearing, an economist at Capital Economics, said. Rate cuts to help out the struggling economy are clearly way off the agenda, he said.
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