The Brazilian trade balance registered a surplus of $850 million last week, according to the Secretariat of Foreign Trade (Secex) of the Ministry of Development, Industry and Foreign Trade (Mdic).
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The amount is the result of $3.59 billion in exports and $2.74 billion in imports.
Average daily exports declined 2.1% to $778 million over the values posted in December of last year, but average daily imports declined even more at 29.9% in the same comparison with $548 million, which explains the surplus.
The sharp decline in imports was the result of less spending with purchases of fuel and lubricants, auto and autoparts, electric equipment and electronics, plastic products and mechanical equipment.
The export results occurred due to weaker sales of basic goods in 7.8%. This estimation includes products such as iron ore, coffee beans, crude oil, beef and poultry.
Also, semi-finished products declined in 3.7% due to cast iron, semi-finished gold, hides and skins, sawn wood and iron alloys. But there was an increase of 5.9% in external sales of manufactured products, especially due to flexible iron and steel pipes, passenger vehicles, tractors, ethanol, engines and generators and aircrafts.
Year-to-date until December’s third week, the Brazilian trade balance also registers a surplus of $16.6 billion, with $185.2 billion in exports and $168.5 billion in imports.
The Brazilian minister of Development, Industry and Foreign Trade, Armando Monteiro, said this Tuesday (22) that the $35 billion trade surplus forecast for 2016 is still in place.
The Brazilian federal government debt was up 2.66% in November from October 2015, from BRL 2.646 trillion to BRL 2.716 trillion ($661.9 billion to $679.4 billion), the National Treasury Department reported this Tuesday (22). ■
Predominant upper-level ridging stretching from the Southwest to the southern High Plains will allow for another day of record-breaking heat across parts of Nevada and Arizona today.