Brazil exported $50.99 billion more than it imported in 2020

Brazil’s trade of balance closed out 2020 with a larger surplus than 2019’s. Last year, Brazil exported $50.995 billion more than it imported, up 6.2 percent from the surplus reported in 2019 ($48.035 billion). In the daily average criterion, which divides the total balance by the number of business days, the growth reached seven percent.

The surplus went up for the first time after the consecutive years of decline. It is attributed to the sharper reduction in imports also compared to a low in exports.

Last year, Brazil exported $209.921 billion, down 6.1 percent from 2019 in the daily average criterion. Imports added up to $158.926 billion, down 9.7 percent also under the daily average criterion.

Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, Brazil started exporting less as global consumption sank. Conversely, the country also began to buy less from overseas due to an increase of nearly 30 percent in the dollar last year.

December

The surplus in the trade of balance could have been much larger were it not for December’s performance. Last month, Brazil posted a negative balance, importing $42 million more than it exported.

The shrinkage in December exports was pulled by agriculture, whose sales overseas dropped 21.4 percent last month compared to the same month in 2019. This is due to the shipments of multiple products—like soybeans (-91.7%) and husked or crude rice (-99.6%).

Exports in the extraction industry went down 8.8 percent in December, pulled by aluminum ore (-56.3%) and crude petroleum oils (-57.1%). Exports in the manufacture industry were the only ones that increased last month—0.9 percent against December 2019. The main spikes were seen in processed sugar, up 103.3 percent, processed gold (+56%), and fuels (+48.9%).