Joe Leahy – Financial Times, 02/25/2016
Chinese exports to Brazil collapsed last month in the latest dramatic sign of the deepening recession in Latin America’s biggest economy.
Containerised exports from China to Brazil of goods ranging from automotives to textiles fell 60 per cent in January compared with a year earlier as the weak real limits Brazilians’ ability to buy imported goods, according to Maersk Line, the world’s largest shipping company. Total volume of containerised imports into Latin America’s biggest economy halved, data showed.
“What we are seeing right now from China is not only a phenomenon for Brazil, we are seeing the same all over Latin America, declining [Chinese export] volumes into all the markets,” said Antonio Dominguez, managing director for Maersk Line in Brazil, Paraguay, Uruguay and Argentina. “It has been going on for several quarters but is getting more evident as we move into [2016].”