BRASILIA (Reuters) – Brazil posted a net foreign exchange inflow of $3.1 billion in May, central bank figures showed on Wednesday, its first net inflow since July last year.
The figures showed a surplus of almost $4 billion from trade-related FX contracts and an outflow of $882 million from financial FX contracts, resulting in the biggest monthly inflow since February last year.
So far this year, however, Brazil has posted a net FX outflow of $9.7 billion, compared to a $3.2 billion net inflow in the same period last year.
In the eight months of outflows from August last year through April, a net $55.3 billion flowed out of Brazil.
The figures for May show that the central bank sold a net $520 million of currency reserves, and commercial banks reduced their net short dollar cash position to $25.5 billion, the lowest in six months.
Taking into account its currency market activity in May, including swaps and repurchase operations, the central bank’s net FX position fell to $299.3 billion from $303.4 billion in April, the lowest since at least January 2018.
(Reporting by Jos de Castro; Writing by Jamie McGeever; Editing by David Gregorio)
