Chile Posts Smallest Trade Surplus in Almost Two Years on Surging Imports

Chile reported its smallest trade surplus since 2008 as a surging economy increases demand for imported machinery and consumer goods.

Chile had a surplus of $530 million in August, the balance of $5.4 billion in exports and $4.9 billion in imports, the central bank said today. The median estimate of eight economists surveyed by Bloomberg was a surplus of $925 million.

Imports jumped 49 percent in August from a year earlier to their highest level since October 2008, reflecting demand from factories that are ramping up production and consumers benefitting from economic growth and falling unemployment. Chile’s economy expanded a faster-than-forecast 7.1 percent in July from a year earlier, while the jobless rate unexpectedly fell to 8.3 percent in the three months through July.

Chilean exports increased 25 percent last month. The surplus in August was the smallest since a $221 million deficit in December 2008 and a $165 million surplus in November 2008, according to Bloomberg data.

Chile’s peso was little changed at 497.85 per U.S. dollar at 9:27 a.m. New York time. A 9.7 percent gain this quarter is the second-best performance among 25 emerging-market currencies tracked by Bloomberg after Poland’s Zloty.

Chile is set to expand exports and imports of goods by 33 percent and 19 percent respectively this year, the Santiago- based Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean, known as Cepal for its initials in Spanish, said in a report last week. Trade slumped last year during the worst recession in a decade.

Mining

The mining industry accounted for 59 percent of Chile’s exports in the second quarter followed by industrial exports with 28 percent, according to central bank data.

Industrial imports accounted for 82 percent of the second- quarter total followed by the mining industry with 8.9 percent of Chile’s total imports, the central bank said.

China was Chile’s biggest export destination in the second quarter, accounting for nearly 23 percent of sales abroad, the central bank said. The U.S. was the biggest source of imports in the quarter with nearly 17 percent of the total.

To contact the reporters on this story: Randy Woods in Santiago at rwoods13@bloomberg.net; or Sebastian Boyd in Santiago at sboyd9@bloomberg.net

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