Brazilian Real - BRL

The Brazilian Real (BRL) has been the national currency of Brazil since 1994, when it was created to replace the ancient cruzeiro of 1942 (the name “real” was also the name of the previous official currency of the country that the since 1822- independent Brazil inherited from the Portuguese Empire).

Introduced on the basis 1BRL= 1USD and with several other economic measures with aim to stop the hyperinflation which was equal to 5000% each year, the Real fast lost value against the US Dollar it was still indexed (1 USD = 2,07 BRL in 1999), but the economic growth happened and inflation was under control (in 1995: 25% a year, then under 10% since 1999 despite an economic crisis that stopped the Brazilian growth in 1998).

In 1999, the Brazilian monetary authorities decided to dis-index the Brazilian Real of the Dollar; the Brazilian currency , that freely floated, alternated appreciation and depreciation periods against the US Dollar, the cross USD/BRL was at USD/BRL= 1.72 in March 2000, but increased at USD/BRL=3.54 in January 2003.

With USD/BRL=2.7 in January 2005, the USD/BRL cross constantly decreased (and the Brazilian Real appreciated against the dollar= until August 2008 (USD/BRL= 1.6) before the financial and stock-exchange storm of the Fall of 2008 led to a clear and fast re-appreciation of the dollar (USD/BRL=2.4 in December 2008) which was soon followed by a clear re-appreciation in favor of the Real.

So we had on the Forex USD/BRL = 1,7253 at the end of November 2009.