Meirelles Says Brazil Considering Higher Inflow Taxes to Stem Real’s Rally

Brazil’s government is considering increased taxes on capital inflows in a bid to stem the real’s rally as other countries adopt policies to weaken their currencies, central bank President Henrique Meirelles said.

“We should have a balanced global economy,” Meirelles told reporters today in London. “We can’t have some countries having their currencies weakened. Evidently, we’re going to have a few countries paying the price for that.”

Yields in interest-rate futures contracts due in January 2021 jumped 0.185 percentage point, the most in a month, to 11.73 percent on speculation a tax may discourage foreign investments in local assets. The January 2021 rate was at 11.67 percent at 1:57 p.m. New York time. The real gained 0.2 percent to 1.7070 per U.S. dollar from 1.7106 yesterday.

President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva’s administration is trying to stem a four-month rally by the real that has extended its advance to 35 percent since the end of 2008, the second-best performance among emerging-market currencies tracked by Bloomberg after the South African rand.

“The government is looking at exchange rates,” said Felipe Brandao, director of emerging markets at ICAP Brasil SA, the fourth-largest currency broker in Brazil’s futures exchange. “But this may affect interest rates, because foreign investors are taking part more and more in Brazilian debt.”

Meirelles said an increase in taxes was an “open possibility” and that the Finance Ministry is responsible for a final decision.

“Serious problem”

Finance Minister Guido Mantega, speaking yesterday in Sao Paulo, said Brazil was considering taxes on short-term, fixed- income investments. He didn’t provide details. The yield on the January 2021 interest-rate futures contract rose 0.135 percentage point, or 13.5 basis points, to 11.55 percent yesterday.

Brazil’s government last October slapped a 2 percent tax on foreign purchases of equities and fixed income securities to fend off what Mantega considered “excess speculation” involving the real.

“There is a very serious currency problem, which should be addressed,” Meirelles said today. The central bank and the Finance Ministry “agree that’s not something Brazil should pay the price for.”

The central bank bought $5.9 billion in the first 12 days of September, the most in 11 months, according to Altamir Lopes, head of the bank’s economic department. The bank has purchased dollars every day since July 9, swelling its foreign reserves to a record $274 billion.

The bank has been boosting its intervention in the foreign- exchange market to offset an inflow of dollars from investors participating in Petroleo Brasileiro SA’s $70 billion record share offering last week.

Meirelles said the effect of the inflow of dollars from Petrobras’s sale has “apparently” eased off.