The Brazilian industrial park registered a drop of 11.8% in industry production in the first two months of 2016 in comparison to January and February of last year.
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Meanwhile, the annualized rate, the year-to-year indicator, closed February with a 9% decline, the sharpest drop since 9.4% was registered in November 2009.
The data is from the Monthly Survey of Industry – Physical Production (PIM-PF) and was released by the Brazilian Institute of Geography and Statistics (IBGE). February was the main reason for the decline, since January had an increase.
Brazilian exports totaled $15.994 billion in March, with imports at $11.559 billion, which resulted in a trade balance surplus of $4.435 billion.
It’s the highest surplus for the month since the beginning of the historical series in 1989. The data was released by the Ministry of Development, Industry and Foreign Trade (MDIC).
Exports totaled $727 million on average per business day, a decline of 5.8% over the average of March of last year. With imports the average stood at $525.4 million, a decline of 30% in the same comparison. The surplus, however, increased nearly tenfold over the same month in 2015.
Basic, semi-finished and finished products all saw a decline in external sales, especially cast iron, hides, iron and steel semi-finished, raw sugar, ferro-alloys, wood pulp, flat-rolled products, engines for vehicles and parts, auto parts, electrical engines and generators, pumps and compressors, aluminum oxides and hydroxides, refined sugar, iron ore, crude oil, coffee, soy bran and tobacco.
In these categories, however, shipments increased with crude soybean oil, copper cathodes, semi-finished gold, sawn wood, centrifuges and filtering machinery, ethanol, aircraft, auto, polymers, earth leveling machinery, cargo vehicles, paper, orange juice, maize, cotton, soy beans, pork, beef, copper ore and poultry.
Among the destinations, the Middle East (12%) and Asia (4.1%) saw an increase in exports of Brazilian goods. To all the other markets, exports declined.
On the other hand, imports declined with fuels and lubricants, consumer goods, intermediate goods and capital goods. However, purchases from the Middle East increase (10.5%) due to products such as fuel oils, aviation fuel, natural gas, acyclic alcohol and calcium phosphate. ■