São Paulo – Last week, the Brazilian trade balance registered a surplus of USD 974 million, the result of exports worth USD 3.954 billion and imports of USD 2.98 billion. Thus, June’s surplus increased to USD 2.349 billion. The data was released this Monday (20) by the federal government`s Secretariat of Foreign Trade (Secex).
Foreign sales in the month’s third week resulted in USD 790.8 million on average per business day, an increase of 7.2% over the average of June’s first two weeks. There was an increase of shipments of basic goods and semi-finished products, such as soy beans, iron ore, crude oil, soy bran, coffee, raw sugar, wood pulp, iron and steel semi-finished products, ferro-alloys and soybean oil.
However, there was a decline in exports of finished products, especially auto, cargo vehicles, auto parts, aluminum oxides and hydroxides and basic polymers.
With imports, the daily average of the third week was USD 596 million, an increase of 5.3% in comparison to the average of the month`s two first weeks.
According to Secex, there was an increase of external purchases of fuel and lubricants, auto and auto parts, organic and inorganic fertilizers, plastics and steel products.
Year and month results
In June up to the third week, Brazilian exports totaled USD 9.858 billion, with a daily average of USD 758.3 million, down 18.9% over the average of a business day in June of last year. Imports totaled USD 7.509 billion, or USD 577.6 million per day, on average, down 19.7% in the same comparison.
Year-to-date, exports totaled USD 83.351 billion and imports, USD 61.341 billion, resulting in a surplus of USD 22.01 billion. In comparison to the same period of 2015, external sales declined 5.6% and purchases, 29.8%, both measured by daily average.
*Translated by Sérgio Kakitani