São Paulo – The Brazilian trade balance kept, in the third week, the positive performance of the month and registered a surplus of US$ 699 million. In the month up until last Sunday, the surplus is at US$ 2.095 billion and, in the year, US$ 6.703 billion, according to data released this Monday (24th) by the Ministry of Development, Industry and Foreign Trade (MDIC).
According to the MDIC, exports in the third week overcame shipments of the second week in 4.9%, with a daily average of US$ 764.4 million. Imports increased 6.1% over the second week of the month to a daily average of US$ 624.6 million. In total, US$ 3.822 billion were exported in the third week, with US$ 3.126 of imports in the same period.
In the month, however, both shipments and imports are in decline. Until the third week of August, Brazil exported US$ 740.3 million per day on average, 24% less than the daily average of US$ 974.4 million registered in August 2014. According to data from the MDIC, exports of finished products declined 26.9% in this comparison, due to a lower number of shipments of fuel oils, refined sugar, oxides and hydroxide of aluminum, cargo vehicles, medicines and pneumatics.
Shipments of semi-finished products declined 13.2% mainly because of the lower number of shipments of raw sugar, hides and skins, semi-finished gold and ferro-alloys. Among basic goods, exports dropped 23.7% due, mainly, to a decline in the sales of soybean meal, raw cotton, iron ore, maize grains, leaf tobacco, copper ore, beef, pork, poultry and coffee grains.
Imports also declined. In all, US$ 600.6 million were imported on a daily average until the third week. This number is 34.7% below the average of August 2014. According to data from the ministry, spending with imports of fuel and lubricants dropped 75.5%, followed by a drop of 46.7% in imports of organic and inorganic fertilizers, of 33.6% in steel products; of 31.4% in rubber and by-products; of 29.2% in chemical products and of 28.3% among electronics.
*Translated by Sérgio Kakitani
