São Paulo – Capital goods exports from Brazil were down 23% year-on-year in April, the Brazilian Machinery and Equipment Industry Association (Abimaq) reported this Wednesday (27th). Exports also declined in the four-month period through April, though by a smaller rate of 15.6%. <\/p>\n
In April, capital goods export revenues reached US$ 614 million. In the four months through April, exports fetched US$ 2.6 billion. “This proves that the exchange rate has yet to reach competitive levels, and the scenario is made even worse by the paralysis in export financing,” Abimaq said in a statement. <\/p>\n
Year-to-date, agricultural machinery exports dropped the most at 29.4%, followed by logistics and civil construction machinery exports, down 21.8%. Processing industry machinery exports declined 17.4% and oil industry and renewable energy machinery exports were down 17.1%. Foreign sales dropped 13.6% for consumer goods manufacturing machinery and 11.7% for capital goods industry machinery. Exports increased only for infrastructure and heavy industry equipment, by 5.5%. <\/p>\n
The leading destinations of Brazilian capital goods exports were Latin America, United States and Europe. Foreign sales were down 7.9% to US$ 1.1 billion to Latin America, down 6.8% to US$ 543,000 to the United States and down 20.4% to US$ 512,000 to Europe. <\/p>\n
Year-to-date through April, imports also declined by 16.6% to US$ 7.1 billion, and by 17% year-on-year in April, to US$ 1.8 billion. The industry had a US$ 1.2 billion trade deficit in April and a US$ 4.4 billion deficit year-to-date. <\/p>\n
Machinery industry revenues were up 4.5% in four months, despite a monthly decline of 6.2%. Revenues stood at R$ 31.3 billion (US$ 9.9 billion) year-to-date and at R$ 7.5 billion (US$ 2.4 billion) in April. Material released by Abimaq reports that the effect of the current exchange rate is keeping revenues “apparently stable.” <\/p>\n
However, the organization’s future outlook is not optimistic. “However, the slowdown seen over the past two months in domestic sales and exports measured in US dollars leads us to forecast a reduction of mechanical capital goods industry revenues in 2015 for the third consecutive year,” Abimaq stated. <\/p>\n
*Translated by Gabriel Pomerancblum<\/strong><\/p>\n