São Paulo – Trade balance starts May on a surplus of US$ 226 million. According to data released this Monday (9th) by the Ministry of Development, Industry and Foreign Trade (MDIC), in the first six business days of the month a total of US$ 6.224 billion were exported and US$ 5.998 billion were imported.
In the first two weeks of this month, exports averaged at US$ 1.037 billion per day, down 0.2% in comparison to May last year. The reason, according to the MDIC, is the decrease in exports of semi manufactured and manufactured. According to the balance released by the ministry, the shipment of semi manufactured decreased by 10.1% because of the reduction of the shipments of gold, crude soybean oil, raw sugar and synthetic rubber.
The manufactured exports dropped by 7.1%, due to the decrease of aircraft exports, fuel, vehicles, car parts, vehicle engines and parts and refined sugar. Conversely, the staple goods exports grew 5.7%, boosted by the sales of bran, soybeans, coffee beans, beef and pork. In April this year, daily average exports grew by 5.2%.
Imports
In the comparison between the second week of May this year and the second week of May last year, daily average imports dropped 0.3% to US$ 999.7 million. The sharpest declines were observed in fuel and lubricants, which dropped 20.3%, pharmaceutics (-10.8%), vehicles and car parts (-4.8%), rubber and construction (-1.1%) and mechanical equipment (-1%). In the comparison with April this year, imports grew 4%.
In the year-to-date, exports amounted to US$ 75.536 billion and imports reached US$ 80.876 billion. The year-to-date deficit until the second week of the month is US$ 5.340 billion.
*Translated by Rodrigo Mendonça
