Surplus Times Are Gone. Brazil’s Trade Balance in the Red

Exports from Brazil in the third week of January totaled US$ 2.276 billion (daily average of US$ 455.2 million) and imports totaled US$ 2.654 billion (daily average of US$ 530.8 million), according to figures supplied by the Brazilian Ministry of Development, Industry and Foreign Trade.

With the result, the balance of trade (exports minus imports) showed a deficit of US$ 378 million. During that period, bilateral trade (exports plus imports) reached US$ 4.930 billion.

According to the Ministry of Development, up until the third week of January, daily average exports saw a reduction of 21.2% over the average for January 2008 (US$ 603.5 million). In comparison with the daily average in December last year (US$ 628.1 million), there was a reduction of 24.2%.

Daily average imports until the third week of this month decreased by 9% over the average recorded in January 2008 (US$ 561.6 million) and by 2.3% over the daily average for December last year (US$ 523.5 million).

In the first eleven business days of 2009 – up until the third week – there was a trade deficit of US$ 390 million (daily average of minus US$ 35.5 million).

The figure represents a reduction of 184.6% over the 22 business days in January 2008 (US$ 41.9 million) and of 133.9% over the average daily result recorded in December last year (US$ 104.6 million).

ABr