The Brazilian trade balance surplus (exports minus imports) in the first 114 working days of the year, up to last Friday, June 15, reached US$ 18.579 billion, an increase of 11.61% over the same period in 2006, according to a bulletin published, this Monday, June 18, by Brazil's Ministry of Development, Industry and Foreign Trade.

The bulletin presents general trade balance figures for last week, when exports totaled US$ 3.010 billion and imports US$ 2.354 billion, respectively up 9.41% and 17.4% over the previous week. This resulted in a surplus of US$ 656 million last week and increased the monthly surplus to US$ 1.725 billion.

In the year, foreign sales reached US$ 66.559 billion to date, with growth of 20.18% or US$ 11.175 billion, when compared to last year, but the purchases of foreign products grew more, mainly due to the appreciation of the Brazilian real against the dollar, and reached US$ 47.980 billion, with growth of 26.38% or US$ 10.014 billion.

The greater increase in imports caused market analysts to forecast a 10% lower trade balance surplus at the end of this year as against last year's, which was a record US$ 46.077 billion.

According to the Focus Bulletin, disclosed by the Brazilian Central Bank, with the result of the study of tendencies of the main indices of the Brazilian economy, promoted last Friday, analysts forecast a surplus of US$ 42 billion this year.

ABr