The Brazilian trade balance recorded a surplus of US$ 8.14 billion in April, informed the Foreign Trade Secretariat, of the Ministry of Economy, this Thursday (5th). Exported goods added up to US$ 28.9 billion and imported goods, US$ 20.7 billion.
In terms of exported value, it was the highest ever recorded for the month of April in the entire historical series. Even so, the surplus was smaller than in April last year, when it registered US$ 10 billion.
One of the factors that boosted the result last month was the increase of almost 20% in the price of products exported by the country, mainly agricultural commodities. In terms of volume of exported products, there was an 8% drop in shipments.
In the year to April, exports totaled US$ 101.185 billion and imports, US$ 81.238 billion, with a positive balance of US$ 19.947 billion, a value 10.5% higher than in the same period last year.
From January to April this year, the trade flow (sum of exports and imports) was US$ 182.424 billion, 25.5% higher than in the same four-month period in 2021.
sectors
Compared to April last year, there was growth in the value of agricultural exports, which registered 12.7% (US$ 48.73 million).
The products with the greatest positive price variations were unground corn, with an increase of 655.4% (US$ 10.43 million in the daily average), unroasted coffee, with an increase of 53.8% (US$ 12.51 million in the daily average), wheat and rye, with an increase of 359,555.5% (US$ 2.90 million in the daily average) and soybeans, with 7.1% (US$ 23.52 million in the daily average).
The manufacturing industry recorded a 35% growth in exports in April, compared to April last year, totaling US$ 202.31 million more in the value shipped.
The most prominent products in the sector were petroleum fuel oils (57.2% with an increase of US$ 23.76 million in the daily average); fresh, chilled or frozen beef (72.1% with an increase of US$ 21.56 million in the daily average); soybean meal and other animal feeds (excluding unground cereals), meat and other animal meal (55.4% with an increase of US$ 18.58 million in the daily average); and poultry meat and its edible offal, fresh, chilled or frozen (44.1% with an increase of US$ 12.07 million in the daily average).
In the extractive industry, there was a decrease of US$ 34.02 million (10.2%) compared to April 2021.
Regarding imports, there was a 33% growth in the purchase of agricultural products (US$ 6.31 million); 58.1% growth in the purchase of extractive industry products (US$ 27.52 million) and a 35.5% increase in acquisitions of products from the manufacturing industry (US$ 257.56 million), compared to April 2021 .
I estimated
The Economy Ministry maintained its forecast that the trade surplus this year will be US$ 111.6 billion. The government’s projections are that exports total US$ 348.8 billion, up 24.2% compared to last year (US$ 280.8 billion), and that product imports total US$ 237.2 billion. billion, up 8.1% from 2021 (US$219.4 billion).