Brazilian external accounts ended April with a surplus of $412 million, according to data from the Brazilian Central Bank.
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This is the first positive result since April 2009, which had a surplus of $125 million.
The head of the Brazilian Central Bank’s Economic Department, Tulio Maciel, said that the result was surprising. “It’s a result that caused a surprise. We were on track to achieve it, but it came a little earlier than what the numbers were showing. Our estimation called for a deficit of $1 billion [in April].”
In the same month of last year, there was a deficit of $6.842 billion in current account. From January to April of 2016, there was also a deficit of $7.166 billion, against $31.941 billion in the same period of 2015.
Among the items within current accounts, the primary income account (profits and dividends, payments on interest rates and wages) presented a deficit of $1.933 billion last month. The services account (international traveling, transports, equipment rental and insurance, among others) presented a deficit of $2.521 billion.
The secondary income account (revenues generated in an economy and distributed to other in the form of donations and dollar remittances, without the return in services or goods) presented a surplus of $219 million.
The trade balance registered a surplus of $4.647 billion. Maciel said that this is the item of external accounts that has been “displaying a better performance in a fairly robust way”. “The month of April is seasonally favorable, but still it was better than initially forecasted.”
The foreign direct investment in the country (FDI) reached $6.82 billion. In the first four months of the year, these investments reached $23.753 billion. The amount is more than enough to finance the 2016 year-to-date deficit.
The country also registered investments in stock markets, in Brazil and abroad, and in funds, worth $1.581 billion and $4.482 billion in April and in the first four months, respectively.
The outflow of securities traded in the country reached $125 million last month, and $7.195 billion from January to April of this year. ■
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