In a move to contain inflation ahead of this year's Oct. 2 elections, Brazil's Chamber of Foreign Trade decided to cut down the Mercosur Common External Tariff (TEC) by 10% on items such as beans, meat, pasta, cookies, rice, and construction materials, the Ministry of Economy announced.
Brazil is determined that Mercosur's Common External Tariff, TEC, be reduced by 20% in two rounds of unilateral cuts, 10% immediately, and the other 10% in December. This is the official strategy and position of Brazil for the extraordinary meeting in June of the four founding members of the group, in Buenos Aires, underlined Lucas Ferraz, foreign trade secretary of the Brazilian Ministry of the economy.
Brazil’s trade surplus shrank 20% to US$ 46.67 billion last year, official data showed on Thursday, as upwardly revised exports in recent months failed to mask a widespread slump in overseas demand for Brazilian goods over the course of 2019.
Brazil’s Economy Ministry on Monday raised its projection for the country’s trade surplus this year to US$56.7 billion from US$50 billion but warned that trade activity will decline due to slowing global economic growth.
The European Union and Mercosur will likely close a trade agreement in the near future, Brazil’s Foreign Trade Secretary Lucas Ferraz said in an interview with Bloomberg. “We’ve never been so close,” Ferraz said adding, “we’ve advanced more in four months than in 20 years”.
Brazil posted a trade surplus of US$ 4.99 billion in March, the Economy Ministry said, significantly smaller than the same month a year ago thanks to a strong rise in imports. The trade surplus last month fell 22.3% to US$ 4.99 billion from US$ 6.42 billion a year ago, although that was up more than a third from February’s surplus of US$ 3.67 billion.