Brasília, February 19, 2004 (Agência Brasil - ABr) - The balance of payments registered a US$ 4.2 billion surplus in January. The result of surpluses of US$ 3.846 billion in the financial account and US$ 669 million in current accounts. These figures appear in the monthly report on the Foreign Sector, released today by the head of the Central Bank's Economic Department, Altamir Lopes.

Lopes said that this was the best result in financial accounts since January, 1992, and the outstanding items, once again, according to him, were the US$ 1.588 trade balance surplus and the US$ 2.690 billion surplus in foreign portfolio investments. For the sake of comparison, the surplus in current accounts was US$ 349 million in December, 2003, and US$ 154 million in January of the same year. (DAS)