São Paulo – Brazilian beef exports brought a profit of US$ 426 million in January, a drop of 23% in comparison to the same month last year. 96,000 tons of the product were shipped, a decline of 26% in the same comparison. The data were released this Monday (09th) by the Association of Brazilian Beef Exporters (Abiec, in the Portuguese acronym).
The president of the association, Antônio Jorge Camardelli, declared, in a press release, that performance was affected by the Russian market, which is falling following the decline of international oil prices.
“The slowdown was expected due to the macroeconomic environment that Russia is going through and also because the new quotas [import] for the year were not distributed to the country’s importers”, he stated, according to the release.
On the other hand, Egypt purchased the amount of US$ 71.74 million of Brazilian beef last month, up 30% over January 2013. Brazil shipped 20,600 tons to the Arab country, an increase of 23% in the same comparison.
Egypt was the second largest market of the sector in January, behind only Hong Kong, with imports grossing US$ 130 million.
“The Arab countries are a crucial market for Brazilian beef, where in the last ten years only, we have more than doubled revenues with sales to the region, going from US$ 537 million to US$ 1.3 billion [per year]. And we still have potential to grow even more”, said Camardelli according to Abiec’s release.
The association and the sector’s companies are attending Gulfood this week, the food industry fair in Dubai, United Arab Emirates. Camardelli believes that the Saudi Arabia’s embargo on Brazilian beef imports, in place since December 2012, will be suspended soon.
*Translated by Sérgio Kakitani
