India, Latin America Collaboration

Bloomberg.com: Latin America

Brazil’s real strengthened to a nine-year high for a second consecutive day as rising interest rates lure investors to the nation’s fixed income securities.

The real advanced 0.4 percent to 1.5716 per dollar at 9:12 a.m. New York time, from 1.5781 yesterday. The currency touched 1.57, the strongest since January 1999. The real has gained 13 percent this year, the biggest advance against the dollar among the 16 most-actively traded currencies.

Brazil’s central bank raised the overnight lending rate 0.75 percentage points to 13 percent on July 23, the most in five years. The increase boosted the attractiveness of the investment-grade country’s bonds and interest-rate futures, said Gerson de Nobrega of Banco Alfa.

“The conditions are excellent for foreign investors,” said Nobrega, head of the bank’s treasury desk in Sao Paulo. “The inflows have been very positive.”