Brazil not setting forex target for soaring currency: official

SAO PAULO — Brazil's central bank said Friday it aimed to prevent foreign exchange "distortions" but set no target values for its national currency, the real, which is soaring against the US dollar.
"The central bank doesn't have forex targets... what we have is a policy of (foreign currency) reserve accumulation to improve the country's resistance to the crisis," the head of the institution, Henrique Meirelles, told reporters in Sao Paulo.
The real has gained 26 percent against the dollar so far this year, recovering almost all the ground lost when the global financial crisis hit in September last year.
Although the dollar initially strengthened during the crisis because of its safe-haven status, it has since weakened considerably as investors looked to higher-risk emerging markets such as Brazil which promise better returns.
On Friday, the real was trading at 1.85 to the dollar.
Brazil's central bank has been taking advantage of the dollar's relative weakness over the past three months to bolster its already hefty foreign reserves.
Its purchases of the US unit have seen those reserves swell to a record 212 billion dollars in July.
The flip-side of the equation, though, is that Brazil's exports have become more expensive in dollar terms.
That has become a point of concern for several exporting companies, which raised that problem in a meeting on Wednesday with Finance Minister Guido Mantega, the state news agency Agencia Estado reported.
Although many sectors in Brazil are showing renewed growth powering the country out of a short-lived recession, manufacturing companies are continuing to have difficulty, according to the head of the National Confederation of Industry, Armando Monteiro Neto.