China contributed US$23.3 billion to Brazil’s trade surplus through August 2022

Brazilian trade with China brought the Latin American country a surplus of US$23.3 billion from January to August.

“The achievement of trade surpluses continues to depend on the Asian market and China in particular,” it added.

In the January-August 2022 period, Brazil’s trade balance with Asia was US$34.2 billion, including trade with China of US$23.3 billion.

The remaining trade with other Asian countries of US$10.9 billion was higher than with South America of US$9.7 billion and with the European Union of US$5.2 billion.

The United States is Brazil’s second most important trade partner but generated a trade deficit of US$10.5 billion with the country.

Brazilian trade with other North American countries had a positive balance of US$1.1 billion.

The second largest Brazilian trade deficit occurred in trade with the Eurasian Economic Union (Russia, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Armenia, and Kyrgyzstan), where trade with Russia alone showed a deficit of US$4.6 billion, Brazil’s second-largest bilateral deficit after the United States.

Brazil’s trade balance was US$43.9 billion in January-August, compared with a surplus of US$52 billion in the same period of 2021.

“The lower fluctuations in exports explain the lower surplus in value terms in 2022 compared to the 2021 result,” the FGV reasoned.

Export prices increased 17.4% from January to August compared to last year’s period, while volume increased by 1.3%.

Import prices rose 28.1% from January to August, while volume increased 3.0%.

According to the Foreign Trade Indicator (Icomex) of the Getulio Vargas Foundation (FGV), Chinese purchases are unlikely to boost the trade balance in the same way next year.

In 2023, total Brazilian exports will likely show a less favorable scenario than in 2022, says FGV.