In eight months, the deficit with Brazil has approached $ 2 billion

Despite the fact that Argentina’s exports to Brazil grew by 31.1% year-on-year in August and that imports are “stepped” to deal with the outflow of dollarslast month it closed with a bilateral deficit of $ 255 million, as reported by the Argentina Chamber of Commerce and Services (CAC). With this they are connected 8 consecutive months of red with our main trading partner, which accumulate a negative balance of 1,969 million dollars.

Last month, sales in the neighboring country were $ 1,315 million, the CAC said in a statement. Meanwhile, imports from that destination totaled US $ 1,570 million and showed a year-over-year increase of 40.4%.

So far in 2022, exports to Brazil have grown by 18.8%, while imports from that country have increased by 35% over the same period. The restrictions affecting most imports were in this case more limited because they were mainly related to industrial inputs.

Last month, the year-over-year increase in Argentine imports was explained by passenger carsas well as parts and accessories, flat iron products, civil engineering installations and equipment, and piston engines.

Exports include sales of vehicles for the transport of goods and special uses, unground wheat and rye, passenger cars, milk, cream and dairy products.

In the month, Argentina ranked third among Brazil’s largest suppliers, behind China and Hong Kong and Macau ($ 6,447 million), the United States ($ 5,080 million).

In turn, Argentina was ranked third among the main Brazilian buyers, behind China, Hong Kong and Macao (7,982 million dollars) and the USA (3,571 million dollars).

Growing deficit

The forecast of the consulting firm Abeceb is that the deficit with the neighboring country will continue to grow again this year: “We hope that the bilateral commercial red continues to expand to close around 2022 $ 2.7 billionstill below the historic structural deficit of 3,500 million dollars who ruled on average between 2004 and 2018, but not so far “.

However, they anticipate that “given the Central Bank’s shortage of reserves – and the government’s resistance to making a decent jump in the exchange rate – more restrictions on imports are not ruled out in the coming monthswhich would reduce the annual bilateral deficit “.

At the same time, Brazilian demand is expected to pick up in the rest of the year, thanks to an economy that will grow faster than expected. From the CAC they highlight that the market expectations that the Central Bank of Brazil revealed in August have improved compared to the previous month: they went from a forecast of GDP expansion of 1.97% to 2.26%.

Along with this, and less than a month before the presidential election that will pit current President Jair Bolsonaro against former President Lula Da Silva on October 2, inflation has subsided,

According to the Central Bank survey, the expectation on the rise in prices it fell to 6.61%, from 7.11% p.a. the previous month. At the same time, the level of Selic interest rates – the one that sets the reference market – is expected to remain at the current 13.75% in order to continue to contain the advance of inflation.

AQ