Trade balance has US$ 736 mi surplus in February
Folha de S. Paulo - 02/12/2008
The trade balance started the month of February with a surplus of US$ 736 million - until the 10th - period with only four business days. The data were released by the Ministry of Development yesterday. In the period, the exportation amounted to US$ 2.784 billion, and the importation to US$ 2.048 billion. In relation to the daily averages (total traded per business day), the exportation amounted to US$ 696 million, whereas importation totaled US$ 512 million. In the year, up to February 10th, the trade surplus is US$ 1.680 billion, a fall of 52.9% compared to the same the period of last year. Last year, the surplus was 3.569 billion US dollars adding the month of January to the two first weeks of February. The comparison, however, is adversely affected by Carnival - which, this year, reduced the number of business days in the beginning of February. According to Secretary of Foreign Trade of the Ministry, Welber Barral, the balance of February "may be very superior" to the surplus of US$ 1.164 billion of January. The sales to other countries amount to US$ 16.061 billion, 7.7% above last year's. The purchases of imported products reached US$ 14.381 billion, a growth of 26.8 billion. The Ministry of Development has an exportation goal of US$ 172 billion for this year. In 2007, US$ 160.649 billion in products were exported and the balance was at US$ 40.039 billion. According to the Focus newsletter, the market works with a trade surplus forecast of US$ 30 billion. In the end of last year, the forecast was US$ 40 billion.