São Paulo – The Brazilian trade balance had a USD 3.8 billion surplus in September, a 29.1% increase over the same month of last year. The data was made available this Monday (3) by the Ministry of Industry, Foreign Trade and Services (Mdic).
Brazil had revenues of USD 15.7 billion with exports and spent USD 11.9 billion with imports. Foreign sales declined 2.2% over September 2015 by the daily average, but foreign purchases declined even more at 9.2% in the same comparison.
In September, semi-finished products had an increase of 19.8% in exports. Meanwhile, there was a decline with both finished products, at 3.1%, and basic goods, at 8.6%. The biggest reason for the increase of exports of the first group was the improved numbers in sales of raw sugar, semi-finished gold, sawn timber and crude soy bean oil.
Finished products sales declined especially with aluminum oxides and hydroxides, vehicle engines and its parts, polymers, auto parts, flexible iron/steel tubes and electric generators and engines. Among basic goods, decline in exports occurred especially with soy beans, tobacco leaves, corn grains, soy bran, beef and raw cotton.
Among destinations that saw a decline of Brazilian exports were Asia, with 9.6%, Mercosur, with 6.3%, and Central America and the Caribbean with 2.4%. On the other hand, destinations that saw an increase in exports were Oceania, with 60%, the Middle East, with 20%, the United States, with 8.3%, the European Union, with 2%, and to Africa, with 1%.
In the first nine months of the year, the Brazilian trade balance registered a surplus of USD 36.1 billion, well above the USD 10.2 billion obtained in the same period in 2015. Exports totaled USD 139.3 billion, a decline of 4.6% by the daily average, while imports totaled USD 103.1 billion, a drop of 23.9% against January to September of last year.
*Translated by Sérgio Kakitani
