São Paulo – Brazilian foreign trade ran a USD 43.28 billion surplus from January to November, the highest amount since record-taking began in 1989. The November surplus was also a monthly record at USD 4.75 billion. <\/p>\n
The data was made available by the Ministry of Industry, Foreign Trade and Services this Thursday (1). The government is expecting a USD 45 billion to USD 50 billion surplus by the end of the year, which would come as yet another all-time high – the current one, from 2016, is USD 46.4 billion. <\/p>\n
Exports from Brazil reached USD 16.2 billion last month, averaging at USD 811 million in each of the month’s 20 business days. The average daily surplus is 17.5% higher than that of November 2015, and up 18.2% from the October average. <\/p>\n
Imports totaled USD 11.46 billion, or USD 573.1 million per business day, down 9.1% from November 2015 and up 0.8% from October.<\/p>\n
Year-to-date through November, exports amounted to USD 169.3 billion, or USD 739.3 million per business day – a 3.3% drop over the comparable period of last year. Average daily imports dropped by 22% to USD 550.3 million. Total imports through November stood at USD 126 billion. <\/p>\n
Products <\/strong><\/p>\n November saw exports climb 41.8% for finished goods and 21.3% for semi-finished goods, while foreign sales of basic goods slid 5.5% from November 2015. Top-selling items included refined sugar, automobiles, and electric motors and generators, in finished goods; iron and steel, raw sugar and timber in semi-finished goods; and the drop in basic goods sales was driven by weaker maize and soy exports. <\/p>\n Sales to the Middle East were up 25.8%, fueled by automobiles, sugar, iron ore, soy bran, raw soy oil, beef, cast iron pipes, livestock, chassis and engines, wood pulp and tractors. <\/p>\n Fuel and lubricant imports slid by 46.9%; capital goods imports fell by 22.4%; and consumer goods imports edged back by 0.8%. Semi-finished goods imports were up 1.2%.<\/p>\n Imports from the Middle East to Brazil fell by 30.4%, with the sharpest drops in aviation fuel, urea, natural gas, crude oil, calcium phosphate, lubricant oils, other hydrocarbons, aluminum waste, carboxylic acids, sulphur, printer ink and transmitters\/receivers. <\/p>\n *With information from Agência Brasil. Translated by Gabriel Pomerancblum<\/strong><\/p>\n