Exports in April fell 23% in year-on-year terms, and soybean placements were the main cause, whose exported value plummeted by 67% compared to April 2022, according to the last monthly report of Uruguay XXI.
Although the numbers are impressive, they were as expected by both producers and the government: placements during the first half of 2022 set a record that, it was already known, would be difficult to achieve again this year; and the impact of drought in the country it wreaked havoc on the soybean crop, which has not yet been fully determined.
In this sense, during April, the total amount of income from exports of goods was 859 million dollars, compared to the 1,115 million dollars totaled during the same month last year. This is the seventh consecutive drop since October 2022, but this month saw a steeper declineat levels not seen since April 2020 —the first month of full impact of the Covid-19 pandemic.
According to the Uruguay XXI report, this is mainly due to the lower soybean exports, which marked the greatest negative incidence of the period considered. Thus, the great decrease of 67% in the placements of the oilseed meant 15 percentage points of the export performance of April.
External soybean sales have been falling since October, but this month they had the greatest negative impact, with barely 82 million dollars entered against the 248 million dollars that were obtained from the placements of a year ago. The main explanation is found in the lower harvest as a result of the water deficit, which meant a 63% volume reduction —explaining almost all of the drop in placements. Likewise, prices also showed a drop of 10%.
It should be remembered that, in 2018 and after the great drought of 2017, around 817 million dollars were lost in Uruguay due to the 56% drop in soybean exports that year.
Cellulose, the product that seeks to offset other falls
For its part, the country continues to bet on the pulp exportsnot only to offset the decline in soybeans, but also in the placement of beef, which, until last month, was the main Uruguayan export product.
In this sense, pulp exports continue to experience monthly increases and reached a total of 172 million dollars in April, which represented a 26% increase in the year-on-year comparison. So this product represented 12% of the total exported in 2022.
The Uruguay XXI report does not go unnoticed the start of operations at the new UPM plant —PSU 2. In this regard, he points out that, once the country’s three pulp mills are exporting, it is expected that this will be the main export product From Uruguay.
In any case, due to the growth in pulp sales during April and the parallel decrease in bovine meat shipments —they fell 46% month-on-month—, the product from paper mills positioned itself as the main exported last month.
Source: Ambito
