The Brazilian current account surplus, which includes all operations in international trade of goods and services and with earnings on investments, recorded a US$ 696 million surplus in the month of June, according to information from a survey disclosed Monday, July 23, by the Brazilian Central Bank.
The survey, one of the main indices of the country's foreign accounts, recorded a 10.1% increase, more than US$ 64 million compared with the same month of last year.
The surplus for the last twelve months stood at US$ 15.2 billion, or 1.33% of the Brazilian Gross Domestic Product (GDP), which is the sum of all that is produced in the country. So far this year, the surplus totals US$ 4.383 billion, a 58.6% increase over the same period of last year.
In the month of June, current transactions were mostly influenced by the trade balance surplus for the month, which stood at US$ 3.815 billion, and by unilateral transfers, which stood at US$ 326 million.
The figures disclosed by the Central Bank show that, as a whole, the global result of the balance of payments, which includes current account, capital account and financial account totaled US$ 10.746 billion in June, bringing the surplus up to US$ 61.610 billion.
Foreign investment in the country in June stood at US$ 10.318 billion – a record high for a single month. There was an increase of more than US$ 9 billion compared with the same period of last year, and the amount also surpassed the US$ 7.385 billion recorded between January and June, 2006, according to data disclosed this Monday by the Brazilian Central Bank. Last month, the metallurgy sector alone received foreign direct investments of approximately US$ 5 billion.
This year, foreign investment from January to June stands at US$ 20.864 billion, which is only US$ 5 billion less than the Central Bank's projections of US$ 25 billion for the entire year of 2007. Brazilian foreign reserves in June stood at US$ 147.1 billion, an increase of US$ 10.7 billion over the month of May.
Trade Balance
The Brazilian balance of trade recorded, in the third week of July, a surplus of US$ 651 million, as foreign sales stood at US$ 3.322 billion, and foreign purchases at US$ 2.671 billion.
The result drove the accumulated surplus for the month of July up to US$ 2.357 billion, thus pointing to a continuous increase in imports, which grew by 27.7% in the average per business day compared with July 2006, whereas exports decreased by 1.1%.
In the accumulated result for the year, the trade balance surplus now stands at US$ 23.019 billion. In 139 business days, exports reached US$ 82.859 billion, an increase of 16.8% in comparison with the same period of last year. Imports, on the other hand, reached US$ 59.840 billion, an increase of 26%.
ABr
