Brazilian container exports see strong rebound in March

If Brazil performed poorly in containerized exports in February, newly released data by the Business Intelligence team at Datamar shows that in March 2023, the country saw its export volume increase 23% month-on-month.

Despite this, March exports are still 8% lower than the same month in 2022; however, container volumes shipped abroad (231,096 TEUs) are higher than in 2019 and 2020. In the year-to-date, the decrease is 12.2% compared to the first quarter of 2022.

The chart below shows Brazil’s exports of containerized cargo in each month of the first quarter of the year from 2019 all the way through 2023.

Quarter-on-quarter comparison of Brazilian exports | 2019 – 2023 | TEUs

Source: DataLiner (click here to request a demo)

The highlights among the most exported goods occurred among meat shipments (up 5% in the quarter compared to last year), particularly chicken meat, whose exports increased 15.8% in the first quarter of 2023 compared to the same period in 2022.

According to Ricardo Santin, the president of ABPA – Brazilian Animal Protein Association – Brazilian shipments to some of the most important destinations saw widespread expansion at a time the country was well equipped to satisfy this demand. With the low supply of the protein in the Northern Hemisphere due to high production costs and avian influenza outbreaks, some importers opted to buy more from Brazil.

Conversely, shipments of wood (-20.7%), coffee (-18%), and paper (-24.5%) plunged.

The two major destinations of Brazilian exports via containers, China and the United States, saw reductions of 10.4% and 17.4%, respectively, in the first three months of the year compared to the first three months of 2022.

Imports

Imports, on the other hand, grew 9.7% in March compared to the same month of 2022. The total registered in Q1 2023 (January to March) was 617,924 TEUs in imports, a volume 1.24% higher than the same period in 2022.

See below Brazilian containerized imports in each month of the first quarter of the year since 2019. The data was collected by Datamar’s Business Intelligence team:

Quarter-on-quarter comparison of Brazilian imports | 2019 – 2023 | TEUs

Source: DataLiner (click here to request a demo)

Plastic was Brazil’s most imported cargo using containers in the first quarter of 2023, with quantities 23.8% higher than at the same time in 2022. Imports of engines and auto parts increased by 4% over the same period.

Among Brazil’s top imports in the first quarter of the year, China, the leading supplier of these items, decreased shipments by 6.1%. The United States, the second-largest source of products produced overseas, sent a volume 27.8% higher to Brazil.

General Outlook

The perspective is a little better for the coming months. According to a market analysis released by Brazilian bank Bradesco, the economic activity figures keep exceeding expectations. For example, retail sales increased by 1.7% from January to February, while actual revenue from services grew by 1.1% after falling by 3% in January.

This performance reveals resilient growth in household consumption in the first quarter, which gained traction with the aid of a growing formal labor market. In March, the net generation of formal employment corresponded to 195 thousand positions filed, that is, 300 thousand posts when seasonal effects are excluded.

These figures back Bradesco’s estimated 1.3% GDP growth in the first quarter, pushed by agriculture and other economic activities. The bank expects the pace of economic growth will fluctuate less in the coming months due to tight monetary policies, prompting a shift in its year-end growth prediction from 1.5% to 1.8%.

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