São Paulo – The Brazilian trade balance registered a surplus in the second week of December. According to data released this Monday (15) by the Ministry of Development, Industry and Foreign Trade (MDIC), exports exceed imports in US$ 380 million in the period between 08 and 14 of this month. In the second week of December, Brazil exported US$ 4.120 billion, or US$ 824 million as daily average, and imported US$ 3.740 million, or US$ 748 million per day.
In this month’s first week, the trade balance already turned a surplus. With this, December’s partial results reached a US$ 778 million surplus.
According to MDIC’s data, even with the surplus in the trade balance, exports for the month, up until Sunday (14), are lower than in December 2013. This month, exports reached US$ 858.8 million as daily average, a figure 13.5% lower than the amount of December of last year. In this comparison, sales are lower in the three categories of products.
Sales of manufactured products are 24.1% lower than last year’s December, due to a drop in sales of auto, engines and generators, aircraft, freight vehicles, engines, pneumatic and auto parts. Semi manufactured shipping registered a 6.5% retraction due to a drop in sales of gold in semi manufactured form, raw soybean, cellulose and ferro-alloy. The shipping of basic products registered a reduction of 5.9% due to a drop in sales of iron ore, soybean meal and beef.
Lower imports
In comparison to December of last year, imports also show up lower. By the daily average, Brazil imported US$ 781 million until Sunday, a figure 9.9% lower than the US$ 866.5 million imported daily in December 2013. According to MDIC, expenditures with fuel and lubricants dropped 47.1% while with mechanical equipment the drop registered in 20.3%. Among organic and chemical fertilizers, the reduction registered in 5.8%, steel products was 4.5% and auto and auto parts dropped 1.8%.
In the cumulative of the year, the Brazilian trade balance is still registering losses. Until Sunday, the deficit was US$ 3.445 billion. In 2013, losses until the second week of December registered US$ 157 million.
*Translated by Sérgio Kakitani
