São Paulo – After showing a surplus of US$ 401 million in the first eight weekdays in March, Brazilian trade balance was again in deficit last week, according to information released this Monday (24) by the Ministry of Development, Industry and Foreign Trade (MDIC).
The trade balance was negative by US$ 461 million in the period between March 17 and 23, with five weekdays, amounting to US$ 4.629 billion exporting and US$ 5.09 billion importing, according to the MDIC.
The daily exporting average by weekday grew 1% in the third week in March compared to Monday. There has been an increase in the shipments of semi manufactured goods, especially raw sugar, semi manufactured iron and steel, raw soy oil and raw aluminium.
External sales of basic and manufactured goods, however, dropped. There has been a decrease mainly in raw oil, poultry, pork and beef, soybean meal, grain maize, car parts, vehicles engines and parts, refined sugar, electric engines and generators and plastic polymers.
On the other hand, the daily average of imports increased 13.2% in the third week in the month compared to the second one. There has been an increase in purchases of fuel and lubricants, car and car parts, organic and inorganic chemicals, pharmaceutical products and fertilisers.
Similar to the performance last week, the trade balance in March is now showing a deficit of US$ 60 million, due to the US$ 12.222 billion exports and US$ 12.282 billion imports. External sales dropped 2.7% in relation to the daily average in March 2013 and purchases dropped 1.4% in the same comparison.
The Brazilian trade balance had already shown deficit in January and February. With the results from March until now, the balance is negative by US$ 6.244 billion year-to-date, as a result of the difference between US$ 44.182 billion exports and US$ 50.426 billion imports. An improvement in the balance is expected only in April, according to specialists.
Translated by Rodrigo Mendonça