Brazil Expecting a 2005 Record Surplus of Over US$ 42 Billion
Written by Stênio Ribeiro
Monday, 21 November 2005
Brazil exported US$ 2.221 billion last week, 15.06% less than in the previous week, in consequence of last Tuesday's, November 15, Proclamação da República (Republic Proclamation) holiday.
The drop in imports, which totaled US$ 1.297 billion, was somewhat greater (-22.61%). These results produced a US$ 924 million surplus for the week and an average daily surplus of US$ 231 million.
With this increment, the trade surplus for the first twelve business days in November surged to US$ 2.752 billion surpassing the US$ 2.076 billion surplus registered for the entire month of November, 2004.
This amounts to an average daily surplus of US$ 229.33 million, leading to a projected monthly surplus that will be this year's second best, if the volume of international trade continues at its present level. Only July, when the surplus attained US$ 5.007 billion, will have been better.
The overall figures on the trade balance were released Monday, November 21, by Brazil's Ministry of Development, Industry, and Foreign Trade (MDIC).
They indicate that this year's trade surplus comes to US$ 39.102 million - US$ 9.585 billion (or 32.47%) more than the surplus registered over the same period last year, which was the best ever up to this point.
The cumulative surplus so far this year reflects the difference between exports worth US$ 103.501 billion (22.4% more than during the same period in 2004) and imports totaling US$ 64.399 billion (up 16.9% in comparison with last year).
The growth in trade flows leads to a projected annual surplus of more than US$ 42.4 billion, according to the Focus Bulletin, published Monday by the Central Bank and based on the expectations of market analysts and financial institutions.
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Brazil received a huge boost in its international image with its selection as the host of the 2016 Olympics, but it was really just the cherry on top of the overall recognition of the country's ascension to the ranks of one of the world's most important countries. Now, as it finally takes its place on the world scene, there has been a great deal of concern about what kind of image Brazil hopes to project, now that the world is really paying attention. 
The only good thing to say about the visit to Brazil of Iran's president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, on Monday November 23, is that it was mercifully short and lasted less than 24 hours. Ahmadinejad had his picture taken being hugged by president Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva who gave him a warm welcome and said Iran had every right to develop nuclear energy for peaceful purposes. 
The small, coastal town of Condé is located just a twenty minute's drive from João Pessoa, the capital of Paraíba. The Northeast of Brazil has historically been a place of encounter and mixing between peoples. For millenia groups of indigenous people fished, farmed, migrated and sometimes fought along this large, fertile area. 
The Brazilian diplo-MÁ-cia (bad diplomacy) carries on its accelerated course towards the non-acknowledgment of human rights, although sometimes it takes pleasure in saying that it does precisely the opposite. The visit of Iran's president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, is another example of a diplomatic omission that verges on hypocrisy. 
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Some sectors of the fight against AIDS have suggested that Thabo Mbeki, the former president of South Africa, committed genocide through his absence from the fight against the illness in his country throughout his two terms. 
One hundred and eleven years after Brazil abolished slavery, the number of workers deprived of their freedom is still huge. They raise cattle, produce charcoal, sugar cane or timber. Some of them, most undocumented Bolivians, work in basements of small apparel factories in São Paulo and other metropolis. 
On November 7, 2009 a few friends and I had an opportunity to take a look inside a Brazilian jail outside the city of Rio de Janeiro. We were able to take some amateur footage of our experience on video (see link below). It's no surprise, of course, that the typical Brazilian jail lacks some of the functionality of those in North America or Europe, but our experience that day was quite shocking. 
Depletion of the Amazon Rainforest is not a new concern facing environmentalists, biologists, ecologists, and a growing number of the Amazonian indigenous peoples. For decades they have feared for the fate of the world's most biologically diverse and species-rich hothouse. 
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