Rio de Janeiro – According to projections released this Tuesday (17th), in Rio de Janeiro, by the Brazilian Foreign Trade Association (AEB, in the Portuguese acronym), Brazilian exports are poised to decline in 2014, and so are imports. The AEB estimates that exports from Brazil will amount to US$ 239.053 billion next year, down 0.4% from the 2013 forecast of US$ 239.904 billion.
Imports are expected to be down 3.1%¨from US$ 239.200 billion this year to US$ 231.830 billion in 2014. A US$ 7.223 billion surplus is expected in 2014; though slight, the amount will be up 926% from an expected US$ 704 million this year.
“All commodities prices are bearish right now. The only reason the decline [in exports] will not be even sharper is the fact that in 2014, Petrobras’ oil exports are expected to increase by 50%. That will offset the decline,” explained the AEB chairman José Augusto de Castro. Barring this factor, he warns that Brazil’s trade balance would post deficit next year.
The AEB’s just-released figures have been revised up from last July’s forecast (from US$ 230.511 billion to US$ 239.904 billion). The same holds true of imports. July’s import forecast was US$ 232.519 billion, as against US$ 239.200 billion as per the forecast issued this Tuesday (17th).
José Augusto de Castro noted that in July this year, the AEB had projected a trade deficit of roughly US$ 2 billion, which will not prove true “solely because the combined value of oil rigs exported this year has been an all-time high at US$ 6.5 billion.” If it were not for this, the country would run a trade deficit, Castro ensured.
He said Brazil will keep being a commodity exporter in 2014. According to him, there is no chance of this scenario being reversed in the short term. That would require cutting logistics costs. “It should take at least three years before we begin to see results.”
Tax reform, lowering labour costs, and reducing paperwork requirements are other measures which need two to three years to bear fruit, “as long as implementation starts now. Sadly, we will remain dependent on commodities (agricultural and mineral products sold internationally),” he said.
*Translated by Gabriel Pomerancblum
