In the first week of October, with five working days, the Brazilian trade balance registered a surplus of US $ 499 million. The result reflects the relationship between exports of US $ 3.374 billion and imports of US $ 2.875 billion. In the year, exports totaled US $ 142.740 billion and imports, US $ 106.061 billion, with a surplus of US $ 36.680 billion.

The data was released on Monday (10) by the Foreign Trade Secretariat (Secex) of the Ministry of Industry, Foreign Trade and Services (MDIC).

For the week, the daily average of exports was US $ 674.8 million.

By this criterion, the performance was 11.7% lower than recorded in October 2015 (average of US $ 764.2 million).In this comparison, sales of basic items fell (-25.1%) - for corn account beans;raw cotton; soybean meal; soybeans;beef and chicken; and tobacco leaves - and manufactured goods (-6.2%) - due to aircraft; auto parts; engines for motor vehicles; electric motors and generators; passenger cars and cargo vehicles.

On the other hand, increased exports of semi-manufactured goods (+ 15.5%) - drawn cast iron; crude aluminum; raw sugar; hides and skins; and gold in semi-manufactured forms.

In imports, the daily average of the first week of October was $ 575 million, 14.1% below the average recorded in October 2015 (US $ 669.2 million). In this comparison, spending fell mainly on fuels and lubricants (-62.1%);fertilizers (-36.6%); motor vehicles and parts (-23.4%); mechanical equipment (-18.5%) and organic and inorganic chemicals (-12.5%).

Source: Portal Brazil, with information from the Ministry of Industry, Trade and Services