Brazil’s annual inflation rate climbed to 9.56 percent in July, the highest level since 2003, official data showed Friday.
Prices are being driven higher by the rising cost of electricity — up 57.8 percent in the past 12 months — as well as increasingly expensive housing, food and beverages, and health care.
Inflation remains well above the central bank’s target of 4.5 percent despite seven consecutive interest rate hikes — most recently to 14.25 percent.
The latest figure adds to the bad news facing President Dilma Rousseff, who has struggled to kick-start the world’s seventh-largest economy, expected to contract by 1.49 percent this year.
A poll released Thursday put Rousseff’s approval rating at just eight percent, making her the most unpopular president since the end of Brazil’s military dictatorship in 1985.
The post Brazil Economic Update appeared first on Live Trading News.