The director of economic policy at Brazil's central bank stepped down on Wednesday, kicking off a shuffle on the bank's board that could also include its president Henrique Meirelles. Mario Mesquita, one of the strongest advocates of the central bank's inflation-targeting regime, left for "personal reasons," the bank said in a statement. His departure had been rumoured for months and was widely expected.
Yields on Brazilian interest-rate futures barely budged in the wake of the announcement, with short-term contracts trading little changed. Mesquita will be replaced by Carlos Hamilton Araujo, currently the head of the bank's international affairs department. A seasoned central bank official, Araujo is not expected to usher in any significant changes to monetary policy in Latin America's largest economy.