Sharply higher food prices pushed Brazilian inflation up to 4.5 percent in 2007, ending a five-year period of inflation decreases for Latin America's largest nation, according to AP. The rate was up from the 3.1 percent rate for 2006 and came in slightly above the expectations of analysts and economists polled recently by Brazil's Central Bank. It also marked the first time that Brazilian inflation has increased since 2002, following a push by Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva to end the nation's history of rates often higher than 10 percent. Food prices jumped 10.8 percent in 2007, driven higher by strong consumer demand as Latin America's nation enjoys an extended period of steady economic growth and because of dry weather that hurt production of stables like beans. Prices of other key goods like housing, appliances, electrical energy dropped in 2007 and eased the impact of the food price hikes on the overall rate. The result could prompt the central bank to maintain its benchmark Selic interest rate of 11.25 percent instead of lowering it _ to prevent the economy from overheating and causing more severe price hikes. The Selic was raised under Silva's administration to 19.75 percent in mid-2005 percent to tame inflation, and the bank then began lowering rates as the price increases eased. Successive rate reduction stopped in October, when the bank started expressing concerns about inflation again. The 2007 rate result marked a rever--SPAsal for Brazilian food prices, which had been dropping for successive years in Brazil, a point that Silva raised repeatedly during his 2006 re-election campaign and that resonated with Brazil's poor masses. He won a second four-year term in a landslide. Analysts polled by the central bank predict Brazil will end 2008 with inflation of 4.3 percent.
