Country faces the challenge to conquer
more markets around the world for its dairy
products, in an attempt to improve Brazil’s
trade of balance of the sector
Imports of dairy products
outstrip exports, since
2008
To come up with solutions for effec-
tively inserting the Country into the inter-
national dairy products market is one of
the sector’s big challenges in Brazil. “With
the exception of 2005, 2007 and 2008, the
trade of balance of dairy products has been
negative for the past 10 years”, say sourc-
es from the National Food Supply Agency
(Conab), from an analysis of the 2005-2015
period. The two most recent years wit-
nessed a recovery in the numbers, although
continuing negative, but in 2016 the gap
between exports and imports widened
again. Over the first five months, accord-
ing to the same source, the deficit soared
59.9% in value and 103.6% in volume.
In 2015, relying on information from the
Brazilian Association of Dairy Products (Viva
Lácteos), the Country even experienced a
surplus of US$ 10.7 million in the second
half of the year, but over the first five months
in 2016 the deficit reached US$ 152.1 mil-
lion. “It occurred because the main com-
mercial partner in exports, which was Ven-
ezuela in 2015 (responsible for more than
75% of the total), reduced drastically its for-
eign purchases by virtue of the economic
downturn in this country”, observed Marce-
lo Martins, executive director of the entity.
The official also recalled the shrinking
prices of some major dairy commodities
in the world, by virtue of bigger supply,
as witnessed in Europe, and the shrinking
demand from China. On the other hand,
he emphasized that imports, for the most
part coming from Argentina and Uruguay,
equally soared. According to figures re-
leased by Conab, which exclude modified
milk and milk based sweets and milk cara-
mel sauce, imports increased by more than
13% in value and 51% in volume, com-
pared to January-May in 2015 and 2016. In
the meantime, exports decreased, by 44%
and 25%, respectively.
Anyway, Conab officials recalled, in April
2016, “the domestic market continues pro-
tected against imports of milk powder with
subsidies at their origin, through the im-
position of anti-dumping measures to pur-
chases coming from the European Union
and New Zealand, in force until February 5,
2018”. Furthermore, on June 6, 2016, as an-
nounced by entities of the sector, the agree-
ment between Argentina and Brazil was re-
newed, setting a maximum import quota of
4.3 thousand tons, effective until June 2018.
In search
of solutions
25
