The difference between exports and imports with the rest of the trading partners of the mercosur showed a red of 493 million dollars in the first quarter of this year, which meant a shot of the 46% compared to the 338 million dollars of last year, according to the latest Foreign Trade report of the Catholic University of Uruguay (UCU).
Although the intra-bloc exchange has an increasing participation in the cake of Uruguay, representing the exports to Mercosur a 29.2% of the total and the imports a 34.7%, the variation of these two flows were even more negative than those of last year for the country.
Although the UCU report indicates that the sales to partner countries increased from almost 861 million dollars from January to April 2022 to $926.2 million current, in the same period of this year (+7.6%); the shopping to the region grew at a higher rate: from 1,199 million dollars to 1,419.6 million dollars (+18.4%). The red in the commercial accounts, meanwhile, widened in the year-on-year comparison.
How was the trade balance with each Mercosur country
“The preponderant role of Brazil which concentrates more than half of the commercial flows with Mercosur, a commercial partner that also increased its shares”, explains the UCU study. Indeed, the neighboring country to the north went from representing 16.4% of Uruguayan exports in the first four months of 2022 to 22.9% this year. In the case of imports, from 19.1% to 21.4%.
In exchange with Argentina This is perhaps the main reason for the widening of the trade deficit with the bloc. Sales to the neighboring country to the west went from 221.5 million dollars to $167.6 milliontherefore its share as a destination fell from 6.2% to 5.3%. Through imports, the exchange percentage grew from 10.4% to 11.3% (from 408.4 million dollars to $463.6 million), thus thickening the red in the bilateral trade balance.
In the case of Paraguayan there was also a similar phenomenon, although on a smaller scale: participation in exports went from 1% to 0.9% and in imports it doubled, from 1.1% to 2%. Finally, sales to Venezuela went from representing 0.4% to 0.1%, while purchases remained at zero between one year and the next.
What Uruguay exported and imported with regional partners
The report notes that, in the case of exports of goods without free zones, “the role of the electric power both in the case of Argentina and Brazil, although their participation has decreased compared to the same period of the previous year”. Strictly speaking, from 18.4% to 16.3% in the first case and from 20.4% to 16.5% in the second, although in nominal terms the latter remained the same (at 120 million dollars).
In turn, research indicates that primary products, as the milk wave malt, stand out among the three main products exported to each member of the regional bloc, although those with higher added value or technological content also stand out, “such as vehicles for the transport of goods in the case of Argentina or the insecticides, rodenticides, fungicides and herbicides in the case of Paraguay.
On the side of the imports, in the first four months of this year primary products also predominated, but in this case cereal grains, corn and fresh or refrigerated beef.
On this point, the study underscored “the role of motor vehiclesthose for the transport of goods that come from Argentina and those for the transport of people, coming from Brazil”.
Source: Ambito
