São Paulo – Brazilian soy exports to the countries of the League of Arab States grew 470% in June over the same month last year. Brazil had revenues of US$ 4.1 million with sales of products to the Arab market in June 2007 and US$ 23.6 million in the last month. In terms of value, the increase was US$ 19.4 million.
In terms of volume, soy oil exports also presented expressive growth in the period. They rose from 6,000 tonnes to 19,100 tonnes. In this case, the increase was 219%. The values refer to bulk soy oil and also to the refined product.
Brazilian soy oil sector industries, in truth, expanded their markets to the Arab world last month. In June 2007, the only Arab country that had purchased the Brazilian product was Morocco, in North Africa. In the same month this year, soy oil exports from Brazil went to Egypt, Tunisia and Saudi Arabia. Morocco did not buy any.
The Arab country that purchased the greatest volume of the product was Egypt, with US$ 13.5 million, or 12,000 tonnes. The second was Tunisia, with US$ 9.8 million and seven thousand tonnes. The Saudis, third in the list, purchased much less, US$ 255,000.
Brazil is a great exporter of soy and derivatives. In the last month of June, exports of the soy complex, which include from oil to chaff and grain, were US$ 2.1 billion. There was growth of 77% over the same month in 2007, when they totalled US$ 1.2 billion. In terms of volume, exports of the soy complex totalled 4.9 billion tonnes in the last month, against 4.4 billion in June last year.
*Translated by Mark Ament
