São Paulo – Brazilian exports dropped 13.3% last week and 13% month-to-date (first three weeks) in comparison to the same periods of last year, according to date released by the Ministry of Development, Industry and Foreign Trade (MDIC) this Monday (23th). The comparison is made with the daily average revenues resulted from shipments. Last week, Brazil had average revenues of US$ 619.7 million per day with foreign trade. In the five business days together, revenues stood at US$ 1.8 billion.<\/p>\n
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There was a decline of 15.6% in semi-manufactured goods sales due, mainly, to the performance of raw sugar, semi-manufactured gold, hides and skins and ferro-alloys. Sales of commodities also declined in 13.6% due, specially, to crude oil, coffee beans, raw cotton, soybean meal, pork and maize grains. Manufactured products dropped 10.6%, influenced by fuels, aircrafts, plastic polymers, earthmoving machinery, freight vehicles, motors and generators. <\/p>\n
To date in February (until the third week), exports were at US$ 9 billion and the daily average was of US$ 692.9 million. There was also a drop in the three categories of products: commodities with 19.4%; manufactured with 8.1%; and semi-manufactured with 1.3%. The commodities had the highest impact in the decline and within them the ones that dropped the most were soybean grains, iron ore, beef and pork and copper ore. <\/p>\n
Imports from the third week of February stood at US$ 2.4 billion. The trade balance was negative for Brazil in US$ 576 million. In the cumulative period of the first three weeks, spending on imports reached US$ 10.7 billion, with a deficit of US$ 1.7 billion. Year-to-date, Brazil had US$ 22.7 billion in exports and imports of US$ 27.6 billion, with a negative result of US$ 4.9 billion in the trade balance. <\/p>\n
*Translated by Sérgio Kakitani<\/strong><\/p>\n