São Paulo – The Brazilian trade balance registered a surplus of USD 925 million in April’s third week. The data regarding this period was released this Monday (18) in Brasília, by the Ministry of Development, Industry and Foreign Trade (MDIC). Last week showed USD 3.670 billion in exports and USD 2.745 billion in imports.
According to MDIC, in the third week, exports reached USD 734 million on average per business day, or 5.5% less than the average until the month’s second week. In this comparison, exports of basic goods declined 7% to USD 369.1 million, due to the decline in shipments of soy beans, crude oil, poultry, beef and soy bran.
Exports of semi-finished products declined 16.7% to USD 86.1 million. In this sector, the products that declined the most were wood pulp, raw sugar, hides and skins, steel and iron semi-finished products and ferro-alloys. Among finished products, the decline was 0.7% to USD 259.1 million per day, due to weaker sales of iron and steel flexible pipes, polymers, taps, valves and parts, pneumatics and cast iron tubes.
In the third week, imports increased 8.4% over the average until the month’s second week. Per business day, on average, imports reached USD 549 million, due to the increase in spending with fuels and lubricants, mechanical equipment, organic and inorganic chemicals, organic and inorganic fertilizers and plastics and plastic products.
Until April’s third week, exports totaled a daily average of USD 757.5 million, amount that remained stable over the performance of April 2015, which recorded, per day, USD 757.8 million. Meanwhile, imports are weaker until the third week of April: USD 525.8 million per day, or 28.3% less than the daily average of USD 733.3 million of last year’s April. According to this comparison, imports declined with steel products, auto and auto parts, fuels and lubricants, electric and electronics equipment, plastics and plastic products and precision and optical instruments.
According to data from the MDIC, exports in April reached USD 8.332 billion, and imports, USD 5.784 billion. There is a USD 2.548 billion surplus in the period. Year-to-date, exports are at USD 48.905 billion, and imports, USD 37.969 billion, with a surplus of USD 10.936 billion. In the same period of last year, exports registered a deficit of USD 5.657 billion.
*Translated by Sérgio Kakitani
