Nov. 14 (Bloomberg) -- Brazil's Finance Minister Guido Mantega said interest-rate easing should be coordinated among world leaders to avoid disrupting economies with little room to reduce rates more aggressively.

With financial markets ``completely integrated, if one country takes isolated action, the money can shift to another that didn't,'' Mantega told reporters in Washington after meeting with President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva and prime ministers from Australia, Japan and the U.K. before a G-20 meeting.

``Brazil will lower interest rates on its own way and will not do what the U.S. and the U.K. have done in terms of reducing rates, though Brazil will seek to lower the cost of capital as a whole,'' he said.

The central bank on Oct. 29 kept the benchmark lending rate unchanged at 13.75 percent, halting six months of interest-rate increases to stem higher inflation.

Consumer prices as measured by the benchmark IPCA index rose 6.41 percent in the 12 months through October from 6.25 percent in September, the government said. The annual rate was the highest since July 2005, and exceeded the median forecast of 6.40 percent in a Bloomberg survey of 19 economists.

U.K. Chancellor of the Exchequer Gordon Brown urged authorities today to cut interest rates and taxes around the world. ``The more we can coordinate that fiscal and monetary stimulus, the more the economy can move forward,'' Brown said in New York. The Bank of England slashed the benchmark rate twice in the last month, reducing it by 1 1/2 percentage points last week to a five-decade low of 3 percent.

`Aggressive' Policy

``If Brazil were to pursue an aggressive monetary policy, boosting liquidity and credit in reais or dollars in our country, other countries may take advantage of that and would not give us anything in return,'' Mantega said. ``For this plan to work, there must be synchronism in adopting monetary measures.''

Global leaders must take immediate fiscal and monetary stimulus to keep the global economy from slipping into a deeper recession, Mantega said.

``There's increasing risk that the recession may become an economic depression if swift policies aren't taken,'' Mantega said. ``Without further lowering borrowing costs and boosting credit, the global economy won't rebound.''

Brazilian policy makers, confronting slowing growth in Latin America's largest economy, have pumped more than 100 billion reais ($44.2 billion) into the banking system to revive lending and prevent the failure of smaller financial companies.

The Brazilian economy may expand 3 percent in 2009, compared with an estimated 5.2 percent growth this year, according to a central bank survey of about 100 economists published Nov. 10.

``It was also clear from our colleagues in the U.K. and Australia that there must be further global effort to take measures to increase trade financing, which have dried up and hurt developing nations'' Mantega said.

To contact the reporter on this story: Fabio Alves in Washington at Falves3@bloomberg.net

Last Updated: November 14, 2008 15:46 EST