Brazilian financial analysts raised their inflation forecast for the end of this year from 5.63 to 5.82 percent, the third straight weekly uptick, keeping it at 4.94 percent for 2023, the Central Bank of Brazil said Monday.
The official target of inflation is 3.5 percent at the end of 2022 and 3.25 percent next year, with a 1.5-percentage-point margin of error in both cases.
According to the bank’s weekly focus survey of the country’s leading financial institutions, experts also raised the gross domestic product growth estimate from 2.76 to 2.77 percent for 2022 and kept it at 0.70 percent for 2023.
Regarding the benchmark interest rate, currently at 13.75 percent annually, economists expect it to remain unchanged until the end of the year and then gradually decrease to close at 11.25 percent in 2023.
The market maintained its exchange rate forecast at 5.20 Brazilian reals to the U.S. dollar for both 2022 and 2023.
Meanwhile, Brazil’s trade surplus is expected to reach 55 billion U.S. dollars in 2022 and 56 billion U.S. dollars in 2023.
