A pandemia de Covid-19 e o comércio exterior brasileiro: impactos na comercialização de produtos em 2020

Abstract

The Covid-19 pandemic caused an unprecedented health and economic crisis in the world. The main goal of this thesis is to elucidate the main impacts of this pandemic on Brazilian foreign trade, specifically on imports and exports of products. For this, first there is a conceptualization process about the disease itself and about international trade, then it discusses how the economies of national states generally react to economic external shocks. Then, it starts with a study on what were the first reactions of the international market to the sanitary crisis and the possible macroeconomic policies to be applied in the reconstruction process. All this in order to shed light on the data collected through the Comex Stat tool on Brazilian imports and exports in the period from 2010 to 2020, both in general terms and by macro-sector analysis, in order to understand the real consequences of the pandemic in Brazilian foreign trade, delimiting which and how each productive sector was affected. Decelerations in international demand were noted, as well as a slowdown in sectors related to transport, tourism and events. However, the sectors considered essential, such as food, supermarkets, pharmacies, health-related sectors, and the logistics behind them operated at full capacity throughout the period. Thus, with regard to the general performance of Brazilian foreign trade, despite the perceived slowdowns, the balance of trade remains positive, largely thanks to the agricultural sector. The fiscal incentives offered by the government helped to keep the international shock in check, and provided results even better than the optimistic scenario of the WTO.