Brazil´s Currency Keeps Rising this Week

Brazil´s local currency, the real, kept strengthening this week against the dollar as record exports and some of the highest interest rates worldwide increase, prompting trade and investment inflows.

"The real rose to its strongest against the dollar since April 2002 on expectations that monthly trade surpluses will remain close to June´s record $4.03 billion," said Flavio Farah, Treasury desk chief with WestLB in Sao Paulo.

The real rose 0.5 percent to 2.3271 per dollar Monday at 10:48 a.m. New York time from 2.3395 late July 15, increasing its 2005 gain to 14.1 percent, the best performance against the dollar of the 16 major currencies.

The government today said South America´s largest economy exported $2.43 billion last week, good for a $985 million weekly trade surplus, pushing the year-to-date figures to $59.44 billion and $22.37 billion respectively, 23 percent and 34 percent larger than the same period a year earlier.