São Paulo – The Brazilian trade balance started the second half with a surplus. In the first three business days of July, last week, the balance sheet of Brazilian exports and imports stood positive with US$ 636 million. International sales reached US$ 2.55 billion with purchases of products abroad at US$ 1.92 billion, according to data released by the Ministry of Development, Industry and Foreign Trade (MDIC) this Monday (6th).
Exports fetched a daily average revenue of US$ 852 million, which meant that there was a decline of 14.9% over the same period of last year, when daily revenues stood at US$ 1 billion. The retraction happened in the three categories of products: semi-finished, finished and basic goods. The sharpest decline, of 16.6%, however, occurred with semi-finished due to slower sales of products such as raw sugar, ferro-alloys, hide and skins, besides wood pulp.
Brazilian imports reached a daily average of US$ 640 million in early July, 31.4% lower than the same period of last year when it stood at US$ 933 million. According to data from the MDIC, the decline occurred especially due to cost reduction with fuels and lubricants, auto and auto parts, plastics and by-products, electronic devices and mechanical equipment from abroad.
Since the start of the year until the first week of July, the Brazilian trade balance stands positive with US$ 2.8 billion. Brazil exported US$ 96.8 billion and imported US$ 94 billion. The daily average of both imports and exports went down in the period, but purchases declined more. Trade flows already reached US$ 190.9 billion this year.
*Translated by Sérgio Kakitani
