São Paulo – Brazilian exports totaled USD 15.994 billion in March, with imports at USD 11.559 billion, which resulted in a trade balance surplus of USD 4.435 billion. It’s the highest surplus for the month since the beginning of the historical series in 1989. The data was released this Friday (1) by the Ministry of Development, Industry and Foreign Trade (MDIC).
Exports totaled USD 727 million on average per business day, a decline of 5.8% over the average of March of last year. With imports the average stood at USD 525.4 million, a decline of 30% in the same comparison. The surplus, however, increased nearly tenfold over the same month in 2015.
Basic, semi-finished and finished products all saw a decline in external sales, especially cast iron, hides, iron and steel semi-finished, raw sugar, ferro-alloys, wood pulp, flat-rolled products, engines for vehicles and parts, auto parts, electrical engines and generators, pumps and compressors, aluminum oxides and hydroxides, refined sugar, iron ore, crude oil, coffee, soy bran and tobacco.
In these categories, however, shipments increased with crude soybean oil, copper cathodes, semi-finished gold, sawn wood, centrifuges and filtering machinery, ethanol, aircraft, auto, polymers, earth leveling machinery, cargo vehicles, paper, orange juice, maize, cotton, soy beans, pork, beef, copper ore and poultry.
Among the destinations, the Middle East (12%) and Asia (4.1%) saw an increase in exports of Brazilian goods. To all the other markets, exports declined.
On the other hand, imports declined with fuels and lubricants, consumer goods, intermediate goods and capital goods. However, purchases from the Middle East increase (10.5%) due to products such as fuel oils, aviation fuel, natural gas, acyclic alcohol and calcium phosphate.
First quarter
In Q1, exports totaled USD 40.585 billion, a decline of 5.1% over the same period of 2015. Imports totaled USD 32.186 billion, a decline of 33.4% in the same comparison. The trade balance reached USD 8.389 billion, against a deficit of USD 5.549 billion in Q1 of last year.
The main destinations for Brazil in the period were China, United States, Argentina, Holland and Japan. The main suppliers were China, United States, Germany, Argentina and South Korea.
*Translated by Sérgio Kakitani
