A few days after the Executive Management Committee (Gecex) of the Chamber of Foreign Trade (Camex) zeroed the import duty on rice in an attempt to lower the price of the product to the final consumer, the United States reported the sale of 30,000 tons of the product to Brazil on Friday, September 18, according to information published by Reuters. The quota establishes that until December this year, 400,000 tons of rice may be imported from countries outside Mercosur. The purchase made on Sept. 18th is similar to the volume of 35,500 tons registered for sale by the USA to Brazil throughout 2010. In May of this year, however, Brazil imported 40,000 tons of rice, with tariff, from the US. According to data from the US Department of Agriculture (USDA), the largest annual volume of purchases of American rice made by Brazil occurred in 2003 (486,000 tons).
Source: Valor Econômico / Datamar News