Rates should peak this year

The recent spike in food inflation has a little further to run and, in most economies, core inflation pressures are building. But even so we still expect headline inflation to start to fall in pretty much every country in the region from around Q4 of this year as the effects of the global commodity price shock start to unwind. Accordingly, while policymakers in Chile, Peru, Brazil and Colombia are likely to raise interest rates further over the coming months, we are approaching the end of the current tightening cycle and rates should peak this year. The exception to all of this remains Mexico, where we are sticking to our long-held and non-consensus call for interest rates to remain at their current record lows until the second half of 2012.