São Paulo – Brazil’s trade balance posted a US$ 1.17 billion deficit in October, according to information released by the Brazilian Ministry of Development, Industry and Foreign Trade this Monday (3rd). The deficit was a result of US$ 18.3 billion in exports and US$ 19.5 billion in imports. Average daily exports were down 19.7% year-on-year in October and average daily imports were down 15.4%. Bilateral trade, i.e. the sum of imports and exports, stood at US$ 37.8 billion in the month.
It was the worst result for the month of October since 1998, when the trade deficit was US$ 1.44 billion. The main culprit in the decline of exports was the manufactured goods industry, whose sales dropped by 30.3% to US$ 6.8 billion, mostly due to lower sales of oil rigs, fuel oils, automobiles, aircraft, engines and generators, automobile engines, auto parts, pneumatics, land levelling machines, pumps and compressors, plastic polymers and medicine.
Basic goods exports were down 15.4% to US$ 8.1 billion, and semi-manufactured goods exports were down 1% to US$ 2.8 billion. Basic goods exports suffered as a result of declining sales of items such as soybean, iron ore, maize, copper ore, tobacco leaves and soy bran; semi-manufactured goods exports dropped as a consequence of reduced sales of crude soybean oil, semi-manufactured gold and raw sugar.
The only destinations to which Brazilian exports did not decline were Latin America and the Caribbean (Mercosur countries not included), up 9.1% and Western Europe, up 52.5%. Average daily exports were down 25% to Asia, 22% to the Mercosur and 40.4% to the European Union. Year-on-year in October, exports were down 0.3% to the United States, 0.2% to Africa and 8.6% to the Middle East.
Year-to-date through October, Brazil exported US$ 191.9 billion worth of products and imported the equivalent of US$ 193.8 billion. Bilateral trade amounted to US$ 385.8 billion and a US$ 1.87 billion deficit was recorded. Year-to-date, exports dropped for manufactured and semi-manufactured goods, but increased for basic goods.
In the 12-month period ended October, the Brazilian trade balance showed a US$ 2.5 billion surplus, as a result of US$ 233.6 billion in exports and US$ 231.1 billion in imports. Bilateral trade in the 12-month period stood at US$ 481 billion.
*Translated by Gabriel Pomerancblum
