BRASILIA: Brazil’s national monetary council raised for the third consecutive time the interest rate at which state development bank BNDES pegs its loans, further reducing subsidies that have eroded the country’s finances in recent years.
The country’s highest economic body, comprised of the finance and planning ministers and central bank chief, raised the so-called TJLP rate by another 50 basis points to 6.5 percent for the third quarter of 2015.
Before its first hike in December, the government of President Dilma Rousseff had kept the TJLP rate unchanged for nearly two years to pump more cheap credit into Brazil’s stagnant economy. (Reporting by Marcela Ayres; Writing by Alonso Soto and Silvio Cascione;