Banker Ricardo Lacerda, president of the investment bank BR Partners, thinks that president Jair Bolsonaro undermined the Central Bank’s credibility by publicly commenting on a conversation he reportedly had with the institution’s president, Roberto Campos Neto, last week.
In a speech at a ceremony on Thursday (9), Bolsonaro said that he went to the BC president to discuss an issue and did not get what he wanted. “If it’s the way you want it, it’s going to get worse,” Campos replied, according to a report by Bolsonaro, who did not give further details about the conversation.
For Lacerda, Bolsonaro wanted to express his annoyance with the rise in interest rates. “The president managed to destroy the benefit of the monetary tightening, which aims to give a boost to inflation”, says the banker. “He was left with only the onus, as his intervention generates mistrust about the BC’s real independence.”
A day before Bolsonaro’s speech, the Central Bank announced a new increase in the economy’s basic interest rate and indicated that there would be another hike in February. Since March, the Selic rate rose from 2% to 9.25% per year. Inflation accumulated a 10.74% change in the 12-month period up to November.
With Ricardo Balthazar (interim), Andressa Motter e Ana Paula Branco.
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