Brazil’s March Trade Balance is The Worst in Three Years

By Lise Alves, Senior Contributing Reporter

RIO DE JANEIRO, BRAZIL – Brazil’s trade balance in March registered the lowest positive result for the month in the past three years, according to the Ministry of Economy. The positive balance was only US$4.99 billion, the lowest for the month since March of 2016, but government officials say that does not mean the Brazilian economy is weakening.

“Trade balance is not related to the commercial performance of 1 country, it reflects specific macroeconomic conditions. What has to do with commercial performance is the share of the current trade in GDP (Gross Domestic Product),” Lucas Ferraz, Secretary of Foreign Trade at the Ministry, said to journalists

Last month, the country exported US$18.12 billion, with imports totaling US$13.130 billion.

With the result of March, the trade balance registered total exports of US$53.023 billion and imports of US$42.138 billion during the first three months of the year. Both exports and imports declined during January through March 2019, compared to the same period last year.

The accumulated surplus for the first quarter (Q1) was of US$10.889 billion, down by 11.1 percent in comparison to Q1 of 2018, when the surplus totaled US$12.243 billion.

Ferraz said that the government is working with a forecast of an annual trade surplus for 2019 of US$50.1 billion, with exports expected to total US$245.9 billion and imports US$195.8 billion.

The Ministry’s forecast is in line with estimate by financial analysts surveyed for the weekly Central Bank’s Focus Survey. The latest survey shows that the market forecasts a trade balance surplus this year of US$50.25 billion