Brazil’s foreign trade surplus for the first ten days of January stands at US$ 1.280 billion, with exports at US$ 4.192 billion and imports at US$ 2.912 billion.
The numbers are from the Ministry of Development, Industry and Foreign Trade, which reports that during the second week of January exports were down 2.63%, while imports rose over 11%, compared to the first week of January.
The trade surplus in the first week was US$ 745 million, and US$ 535 million in the second week of January. Compared to January 2005, exports are up over 18%, and imports up over 16%.
There is a normal, seasonal drop in exports at the beginning of the year. The trade surplus in December 2005 was US$ 4.346 billion, compared to US$ 2.183 billion in January 2005.
Although exports during the first week of January were down 14.2% compared to the first week in December, Brazil still exported a total of US$ 2.124 billion in goods during the first five days of January 2006, an increase of 19.8% over the first week of 2005.
ABr