(Adds context, details on interest rates)
BRASILIA, Feb 14 (Reuters) - Brazil's Finance Minister
Fernando Haddad said on Tuesday that the National Monetary
Council, the government's top economic policy body, will not
discuss changing inflation targets at its monthly meeting on
Thursday.
Haddad told reporters the topic is not on the agenda.
Brazil's finance chief also stressed the need to harmonize
fiscal and monetary policies while predicting that over time the
central bank would see that interest rates are too high.
The comments come a day after central bank governor Roberto
Campos Neto said the monetary authority did not propose the
government increase its inflation target in a bid to make
decisions over rates more flexible, denying rumors since last
week that the target might be boosted.
Haddad also defended more closely aligning monetary and
fiscal policies, emphasizing that failing to harmonize them
would make both the government and the central bank's top goals
more difficult to achieve.
Even Campos Neto has recognized that fiscal adjustment
measures announced by economic policymakers last month go in the
right direction, Haddad noted.
"As results come in, I'm sure this will help monetary
(policymakers) conclude that we might have an interest rate at
the moment that compromises the country's objectives," said
Haddad, who described Brazil's inflation rate as "more
comfortable" than current borrowing costs.
(Reporting by Victor Borges; Editing by Jonathan Oatis and Sam
Holmes)
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