Too many imports

There are quite a number of Brazilian ‘good news’ stories these days, regarding the country’s economy. However, an evolving modern society like theirs is complex. In recent times there have been a certain amount of ‘furrowed brows’ in this leading BRIC nation about the balance between imports and exports. In short, there are too many of the former, at least according to some commentators.

But what about the actual statistics ? Well, output from domestic productive industry only grew by a tiny amount ( less than half of one percent) last year. This was despite the surge in demand from the internal market for goods of all kinds. The shortfall can only be made up by imports of course. All this has a definite effect on international investment in Brazil.

Another fact, this one pointed out by  the Centre for Industrial Economics and Technology at UNICAMP (university of Campinas) is that while Brazil’s GDP has grown by 16% in the last four years, the value of industrial production only managed a quarter of that figure.

Professor Celio at the Centre explained that high taxation, costs of energy and services and of course the dollar exchange rate all tend to work against international competitiveness for Brazilian industry at present.
While unemployment in Brazil is thankfully very low at present, in the long term the import/export situation needs to be improved or the situation will worsen. With fewer people working and earning, fewer of them will be able to afford to buy domestic products.These obviously include either consumer goods or indeed homes of their own, such as those avalable via the Minha Casa, Minha Vida scheme.