Silicon Investor (SI) -- The First Internet Community

STOCKTALK

We've detected that you're using an ad content blocking browser plug-in or feature. Ads provide a critical source of revenue to the continued operation of Silicon Investor. We ask that you disable ad blocking while on Silicon Investor in the best interests of our community. If you are not using an ad blocker but are still receiving this message, make sure your browser's tracking protection is set to the 'standard' level.

Strategies & Market Trends : Telebras (TBH) & Brazil -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Steve Fancy who wrote (1712)	4/16/1998 2:25:00 PM
From: EPS	Respond to of 22640

Interest rates fall below expectations, Febraban says Sao Paulo, 16 - The reduction in interest rates to 23.25% from 28% by the Central Bank's Committee for Economic Policy (Copom) yesterday was considered small, said the president of the Brazilian Federation of Bank Associations (Febraban), Roberto Set£bal. "The government did all that was within its reach, taking into account the current economic conjuncture," he said during an interview beamed in a Brazilian major TV channel. Set£bal believes the effects of the interest rates fall should be felt slowly. "Specially by consumers, whose defalt in payment is very high. Banks, financing companies and the commercial sector are even more cautious after the reduction." Febraban's president claimed that the ideal interest rates would be that of international standards. "However, this depends of a series of things such as the reduction in the public deficit and the adjustment of the exchange rates to a more adequate level." Set£bal believes that the market "invisible hand" is the best mechanism to bring down interest rates to levels compatible to those seen abroad. "The market should be responsible for acting upon this issue and then the competition would do the rest," the president concluded. (By Rosana de C ssia)