Analysis of Brazilian exports to Eastern Asian Countries - time period from 1980 to 2008

The last decade of the 20th century and the first decade of the current century have seen a continuous shift of the economic dynamic from North American and European countries to the pacific countries, specially the ones located on Eastern Asia, highlighting the Chinese growth. However, Brazil has not established any trade policy to take advantage of this situation, despite China has buying more and more of the Brazilian products. This paper aims to analyze the evolution of Brazilian exports to the Eastern Asian countries, focusing on 1980 to 2008 time period and discussing the facts that motivate or halt the trade among Brazil and Eastern Asian countries and how important is this trade for the Brazilian development. Applying both statistics and econometric methodology on secondary data, the following findings arose: (a) China bought only 1.19% of Brazilian exports in 2008 and Japan bought 0.8%, however, Japan and China have become important buyers of some specific Brazilian commodities, affecting some region development; (b) China has became the biggest Eastern Asian buyer of Brazilian products, answering for half of the Brazilian exports to that region in 2008; (c) the Japanese share on Brazil's exports to Eastern Asia countries dropped from 47% in 1990 to 17% in 2008; (d) no trade policy has been established for Brazil to stimulate its trade with Eastern Asian countries; (e) more than half of Brazil's exports to Japan and China are compounded by ore, steel and agro-food products, with the first two standing out in Brazilian exports to Japan and the third one dominating the Brazilian exports to China; (f) econometric equations run to supply and demand curves of Brazilian products exported to Japan and China show regional differences among these two buyers and the results help to discuss policies that can improve trade and development between Brazil and its two major partners on Eastern Asia.