Luciene Cruz       Reporter Agência Brasil

Brasília – Brazil had its worst January trade deficit since records began in 1973. With exports of $16.142 billion and imports of $17.433 billion, there was a record deficit of $1.291 billion for the month of January. For the sake of comparison, Brazil had a trade surplus in January 2011 of $398 million.

Basically what happened was that January 2012 exports rose a weak 1.3%, compared to January 2011, while imports surged 12.3%.

“This deficit does not compromise our goal of another large trade surplus by the end of the year. We also had deficits in January in 2009 and 2010. There is a crisis and if Brazil can continue to export at the high level it did last year, that will be a victory, it will be very positive,” said Tatiana Prazeres, the secretary of Foreign Trade at the Ministry of Development, Industry and Foreign Trade.

Here is a breakdown on the rise in imports: fuel and lubricants were up 54.7%; consumer goods up 15.7%, raw materials up 5% and capital goods up 4.8%.

Last year, between January and December 2011, Brazil’s foreign trade surplus was $29.79 billion, an increase of 47.8%, compared to the same period in 2010.

Allen Bennett – translator/editor The News in English

Link - Balança comercial tem pior resultado para mês de janeiro