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imageBOGOTA: Colombia's central bank should not raise its benchmark interest rate in August because inflation will fall now that a prolonged truckers strike has ended, Finance Minister Mauricio Cardenas said on Monday.

July inflation was 0.52 percent, well above market expectations, taking 12-month inflation to 8.97 percent, more than double the central bank's long-term target range of 2 percent to 4 percent.

A 45-day truckers strike during June and July sent food prices soaring across the Andean country, amid already high costs caused by drought and a currency depreciation.

"August prices should show a fall and that will help so that at the end of the month inflation data will have fallen and we won't have to raise the interest rate," Cardenas, who represents the government on the seven-member central bank board, said.

The bank has raised the interest rate for 11 consecutive months, to 7.75 percent, in an effort to lower inflation to the target range by the end of next year.

Cardenas and two other board members voted to hold rates steady at the July meeting.

Board member Carlos Gustavo Cano said in a radio interview on Monday that the August decision on whether to raise the rate would depend on inflation expectations during the month.

Copyright Reuters, 2016

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