S\u00e3o Paulo \u2013 This Wednesday (17th), the secretary of Foreign Trade at the Brazilian Ministry of Development, Industry and Foreign Trade, Tatiana Lacerda Prazeres, said the Brazilian trade surplus in 2012 will be \u201chigher than expected by many.\u201d Year-to-date as of last week, the country had a US$ 17.5 billion surplus, according to the ministry, as against nearly US$ 24 billion in the same period last year.<\/p>\n
The latest Focus survey, in which the Central Bank polls the financial market, estimated an US$ 18 billion surplus by the end of the year. In 2011, the yearly surplus stood at US$ 29.8 billion.<\/p>\n
Tatiana participated in the seminar \u201cPerspectives in economic relations between Brazil and Arab countries \u2013 60 years of the Arab Brazilian Chamber of Commerce,\u201d held by the Arab Brazilian Chamber of Commerce <\/b>and newspaper Valor Econ\u00f4mico<\/i> in S\u00e3o Paulo.<\/p>\n
The secretary said that even though Brazilian foreign trade is bearish in 2012, with exports down 4.7% and imports down 1.7%, the sector will have \u201cits second best year, in spite of everything,\u201d with figures second only to those seen in 2011. \u201cManufactured goods exports prevent a sharper decline,\u201d she said. <\/p>\n
She said there is concern over the continuation of the international crisis and its impact on the Brazilian trade balance. \u201cThis is a tough year for the country\u2019s foreign trade, most of all due to the crisis, which has driven down the demand from traditional markets,\u201d she said. The decline in prices of iron ore, one of Brazil\u2019s top export commodities, has contributed to push revenues downward. <\/p>\n
Considering this scenario, Tatiana stressed the importance of diversifying target countries and export products. To that end, she said the Arab countries are deemed strategic by the government. The secretary said the region\u2019s consumer market is growing. \u201cAnd tariff barriers are relatively low, they are no impediment to trade,\u201d she stated. <\/p>\n
She also said the free trade agreement that the Mercosur signed with Egypt in 2010 will be voted by the National Congress in the months to come. Tatiana said the topic was discussed at the last meeting of the Foreign Trade Chamber (Camex, in the Portuguese acronym), the government\u2019s policymaking agency for the sector. <\/p>\n
The Arab Brazilian Chamber president, Salim Taufic Schahin, mentioned that there is a huge potential for Brazil to tap into in trade with the Arab world. He highlighted the attractiveness of the food sector. The Middle East and North Africa have growing populations and are highly concerned with food security. <\/p>\n
*Translated by Gabriel Pomerancblum<\/b><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Tatiana Prazeres, of the Foreign Trade Secretariat, said Brazil\u2019s trade surplus will be \u2018higher than many expect\u2019 in 2012. She spoke at a seminar held by the Chamber and newspaper Valor Econ\u00f4mico.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1454,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[91],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-42906","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-economy"},"wps_subtitle":"Tatiana Prazeres, of the Foreign Trade Secretariat, said Brazil\u2019s trade surplus will be \u2018higher than many expect\u2019 in 2012. She spoke at a seminar held by the Chamber and newspaper Valor Econ\u00f4mico.","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/anba.com.br\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/42906","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/anba.com.br\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/anba.com.br\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/anba.com.br\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1454"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/anba.com.br\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=42906"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/anba.com.br\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/42906\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/anba.com.br\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=42906"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/anba.com.br\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=42906"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/anba.com.br\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=42906"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}