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For a fifth month, the central bank late Friday raised its benchmark interest rate by...25bps...to 4.25%... completely ignoring President Juan Manuel Santos’s (above) call for policy makers to pause and preserve growth.
Led by Jose Dario Uribe, the 7-member board showed remarkable independence.
An analyst observed :"Independently of what Santos says, the bank will continue to lift” rates. “Santos’s remark is entirely political. He wants to appease businesses and distance himself from what some see as an unpopular decision.”
“Exporters are worried about rate increases because they widen the spread even further between Colombia and developed nations, bringing in more cash and pressuring the peso,” said another analyst.
