São Paulo – Brazil’s trade balance returned to a surplus in the fourth week of October. In the third week, it had posted a deficit. According to information from the time period released this Monday (26th) in Brasília by the Ministry of Development, Industry and Foreign Trade (MDIC), exports between October 19th and 25th, that is, within five business days, totaled USD 3.91 billion, with imports registering USD 3.808 billion. The surplus of the period stood at USD 102 million.
In the fourth week of October, Brazil exported, on average, USD 782.1 million per day, or 1% more than the month’s average up to the third week. The daily average of imports was of USD 761.6 million, an increase of 8.2% over the month’s results up to the third week.
According to data from the MDIC, up until the fourth week, exports posted a daily average of USD 777 million, or 2.5% less than the performance recorded on October 2014. According to the ministry, the drop was caused especially by the decline in shipments of semi-finished and finished products.
Among semi-finished products, there was a decline of 13.7%, especially due to the performance in shipments of cast iron, hides and skins, semi-finished iron/steel products, crude aluminum, raw sugar and ferro-alloys. Sales of manufactured products dropped 0.9%, especially shipments of refined sugar, auto parts, not-frozen orange juice, oxides and hydroxides of aluminum, auto engines, flat-rolled steel, machines and ground-leveling equipment.
Exports of basic goods increased 1.6% up to the fourth week of this month in comparison to October of last year. Shipments of soy beans, maize grains, cooper ore, soybean meal, leaf tobacco and raw cotton all increased.
Imports totaled USD 722 million per day up to the fourth week of October, with a 14.9% decline over October 2014. In this comparison, the products that had their imports decline the most were steel products (with a decline of 35.1%), electric equipment and electronics (-30.9%), auto and auto parts (-29.4%), plastic and plastic-based products (-26.4%), optical and precision instruments (-20.8%) and mechanical equipment (-18.7%).
Year-to-date, the trade balance has a surplus of USD 11.128 billion. In the same period of last year, it had a deficit of USD 1.927 billion.
*Translated by Sérgio Kakitani
