Brazil’s Trade Balance Registers Surplus in July: Daily

By Lise Alves, Senior Contributing Reporter

SÃO PAULO, BRAZIL – The trade balance in Brazil registered a surplus of US$1.575 billion in July, according to the MDIC (Brazil’s Ministry of Development, Industry and Foreign Trade). The country’s trade balance registered a volume of US$23 billion in exports and US$21.45 billion in imports.

Daily averages sold abroad totaled US$1.001 billion, up by 10.7 percent from July of 2013, while daily average for imports hovered around US$932.6 million, down by 5.5 percent from the same month last year.

One of the highlights of July’s trade balance was a significant increase in petroleum exports for the month, by 276 percent, totaling US$2.6 billion during July. In addition to petroleum, increases in the export of iron and steel (148.2 percent), coffee (77.2 percent), beef (23.2 percent) and poultry meat (11.7 percent), were registered.

The favorable result of the country’s trade balance was also helped by a reduction in imports of capital goods (11.2 percent), consumption goods (9.2 percent) and fuel and lubricants (7.4 percent) among others.

According to Roberto Dantas, director for the Department of Statistics and Exports Support at the MDIC, this was the fifth consecutive monthly surplus for the country’s trade balance. Dantas also stated that the government’s forecast is of a positive result for the overall trade balance this year despite the negative result for the accumulated total from January to July.

Brazil’s Central Bank forecasts a trade balance surplus of close to US$5 billion for 2014, while the market expects the surplus to be lower, at around US$2 billion.

Read more (in Portuguese).

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