São Paulo – The UAE were one of the main destinations of Brazilian exports of processed foods in 2018. The country stood as the 5th buyer and yielded USD 1.19 billion in revenue to Brazil. The data was released this Wednesday (13) by the Brazilian Association of the Food Industry (ABIA, acronym in Portuguese).
The first importer was China with USD 3.30 billion, followed by Netherlands with USD 2.47 billion, then Hong Kong with USD 2.03 billion; the fourth place was for USA, with USD 1.09 billion. The Middle East region represented 14% of the total exported by Brazil. The region, however, showed a 25% drop in revenue in 2018, reaching USD 4.91 million.
Compared to 2017, Brazilian exports declined 9.8% in 2018 over the previous year. The revenue in 2018 reached USD 35.1 billion over USD 38.9 billion registered in 2017. The UAE registered the highest drop in imported volume, yielding 22.7% less compared to 2017. Following are India, which declined 16.8%, and Japan 11.4%. According to ABIA, Brazil is the second largest exporter of processed food in the world and exports to more than 180 countries.
Production
Brazilian food industry grew by 2.08% in revenue in 2018. The amount reached BRL 656 billion (USD 175 billion). According to ABIA, counting exports and domestic sales, the sector represented 9.6% of the Brazilian Gross Domestic Product (GDP). The food industry forecasts a growth of 2.5-3% in produced volume in 2019 and a 3-4% in actual sales. It is expected a total of USD 40 billion in exports.
Translated by Guilherme Miranda
