External accounts registered a positive balance for the second consecutive month, the Central Bank (BC) reported today (26). In April, the current account surplus, which is purchases and sales of goods and services and income transfers from Brazil to other countries, reached US $ 3.840 billion, the highest value in the monthly historical series started in January 1995.

In April 2019, there was a deficit of $ 1.910 billion. “Compared to the $ 1.9 billion deficit in April 2019, the $ 2.3 billion deficit in primary income deficit (profits and dividends, interest and wage payments) contributed, and in services, of US $ 2.1 billion, in addition to an increase in the trade balance surplus of US $ 1.3 billion ”, informed the BC, when comparing the results of April this year with the same month of 2019.

The current account deficit in the first four months of 2020 totaled US $ 11.877 billion, down 29.9% from the US $ 16.953 billion recorded from January to April 2019. The current account deficit in the 12 months ended April 2020 totaled US $ 44.4 billion, which corresponds to 2.61% of the Gross Domestic Product (GDP, sum of all goods and services produced in the country).

Trade balance

Goods exports totaled US $ 18.359 billion in April and imports, US $ 11.923 billion, resulting in a trade surplus of US $ 6.437 billion, against US $ 5.125 billion in the same month last year. From January to April, the trade surplus reached US $ 9.626 billion, compared to R $ 12.681 billion in the same period in 2019.

services

The deficit in the services account (international travel, transportation, rental of investments, among others) reached US $ 1.208 billion in April, compared to US $ 3.296 billion in the same period in 2019. In the four months of the year, the negative balance reached US $ 8.063 billion, lower than that recorded from January to April 2019, of $ 10.839 billion.

International travel

The biggest contribution to this retraction in services comes from the 91.2% reduction in net travel expenses (less revenue), which totaled US $ 90 million in April 2020, against US $ 1.021 billion in April 2019. The restrictions of circulation due to the covid-19 pandemic affected the result of the account.

In April, revenues from foreigners traveling to Brazil reached US $ 113 million, a decrease of 76% in relation to the same period in 2019, while the expenses of Brazilians abroad were US $ 612 million, down 86.4 %, in the same comparison.

In the year to April, the negative balance of the travel account (income and expenses) is US $ 1.556 billion, against US $ 3.528 billion in the first four months of 2019.

In May, until last Thursday (21), the travel account generated revenues of US $ 98 million and expenses of US $ 177 million, with a deficit of US $ 79 million.

Lace

In April 2020, the deficit in primary income (profits and dividends, interest payments and salaries) reached US $ 1.557 billion, against US $ 3.864 billion in the same period in 2019. In the first quarter, the negative balance was US $ 13.871 billion, compared to US $ 19.110 billion in the same period last year.

The secondary income account (generated in one economy and distributed to another, such as donations and dollar remittances, with no counterpart for services or goods) had a positive result of US $ 168 million, against US $ 125 million in April 2019. In the first four-month period reached US $ 432 million, compared to US $ 315 million in the same period of 2019.

Investments

Net inflows in direct investment in the country (IDP) totaled US $ 234 million in April, compared to US $ 5.107 billion in April 2019. The April result was the lowest since July 2016, when there was an outflow of US $ 103 millions. In the observation of April alone, it is the lowest value of foreign direct investment since 1995, when it was US $ 168 million.

In the first four-month period, IDP reached US $ 18.043 billion, compared to US $ 23.395 billion from January to April 2019. In the 12 months ended in March 2020, IDP totaled US $ 73.2 billion, corresponding to 4.31% of GDP, compared to $ 78.1 billion (4.48% of GDP) in the previous month.

BC data also show net outflow (discounted entry) of portfolio investment in the domestic market of US $ 7.313 billion, against US $ 547 million of net outflow in the same period in 2019. In the case of shares and investment funds, the output totaled US $ 2.443 billion. The net outflow of securities was higher, reaching US $ 4.870 billion.

In the first four months of this year, there were net outflows of US $ 31.448 billion in these types of investments, against the net inflow (inflow greater than outflow) of US $ 9.962 billion observed in the same period of 2019.

The Central Bank expects external accounts to continue to show a positive balance in May. For this month, the estimate for the result in current transactions is a surplus of US $ 3.1 billion, while that of IDP is of net inflows of US $ 1.5 billion. This month, until the 21st, the IDP reached US $ 1.266 billion.

Source: Comex do Brasil