as CR$2.750,00, on July 1, 1994, when the cruzeiro real was demonetized and the URV was turned into the national currency and renamed as real. In consequence of this unusual parity it was not possible to stamp old cruzeiros reais notes, so that one entirely new family of notes was issued at once, a remarkably difficult logistics effort At the day of the first issues of the new currency, in an unprecedented move, the Central Bank abstained from intervening in the foreign exchange market and let the new currency float. In consequence, the exchange rate between the URV (now the real) and the Dollar, fell below R$1,00 (i. e. it appreciated) with a great positive impact on expectations and marking the successful conclusion of the stabilization process first phase. The combination of tight monetary policy with floating exchange rates, later under a "target zone regime", or "exchange rate bands", resulted immensely successful to eliminate hyperinflation, but remained one of the more controversial aspects of the Brazilian stabilization experience, and one generally addressed to Franco. The results of the Real Plan on inflation, as measured by national cost of living index, IPCA - published by the National Statistics Bureau - IBGE, were as follows:inflation was running at 43,1% monthly (on average for he first semester of 1994), or 7.260% annually, up to July 1994, the first month of existence of the new currency. In July alone prices rose 6,8%, but the accumulated inflation for the next twelve months was only 33,0%. From this level onward, inflation goes on declining slowly: measured by IPCA, inflation fell below 20%, on a 12 months accumulated basis, only in April 1996, 22nd month after the introduction of the new currency; below 10% only in December, 30th month of the real. Within the calendar year of 1997, the rate of inflation was 5,2%, and in 1998 inflation was finally reduced to 1,6%, the lowest rate on record since the creation of the Brazilian Central Bank in 1964. Institutional aspects and "fundamentals" Before the Real Plan, five stabilization attempts failed between 1986 and 1991 all of which involving price freezes, all but one creating a new currency and one, the so-called Collor Plan in 1990, with an asset freeze much like monetary reforms in Europe following World War II. These failed experiments were called "heterodox shocks" not only because of direct intervention in prices and intrusive currency