Brazil cut its benchmark interest rate for the eighth straighttime and signaled it will continue to lower borrowing costs, asspillover from a global economic slowdown limits inflationrisks.

Central bank board members voted unanimously yesterday to cutthe benchmark Selic rate by a half-point to a record 8 percent, asforecast by all but three of 59 analysts surveyed by Bloomberg. Ina statement almost identical to ones issued at their two previousmeetings, policy makers said “fragility” abroad is having a“disinflationary” impact in the world's second-biggest emergingmarket, providing little guidance about how much more stimulus theyjudge necessary to revive growth.

“It's hard to see right now what the floor is for the Selic,”Jankiel Santos, chief economist at Espirito Santo Investment Bank,said by telephone from Sao Paulo. “They left the door wide open formore cuts.”