Brazil’s high-technology exports rose 7.7% in 2025, but they still represented only 2.7% of the country’s total foreign sales, according to single-source reporting from Poder360, based on data released by Brazil’s National Confederation of Industry (CNI).
High-tech products totaled USD 9.1 billion last year. Low-technology goods, by contrast, reached USD 130.7 billion, or 37.5% of Brazilian exports. The gap shows how much of Brazil’s export base still depends on goods with limited technological complexity.
A Narrow High-Tech Base
The CNI study, prepared with data from Funcex, Brazil’s Foreign Trade Studies Center, said high-technology exports remained 15 times smaller than low-technology exports. For Brazilian industry, that imbalance is a competitiveness problem, not only a trade statistic.
Constanza Negri, CNI’s manager for trade and international integration, said stronger growth in medium-high and high-technology segments is needed for “quality” economic expansion. She said those sectors are essential to diversify Brazil’s export basket and strengthen the international presence of domestic industry.
The figures are especially relevant because Brazil has long struggled to increase the share of more sophisticated manufacturing in its external sales. The 2025 numbers show growth at the top end of the technology scale, but from a small base.
Imports Fill Demand
The same survey found that rising domestic consumption was met mainly by imported goods. Import volumes grew 6.1% in 2025, while Brazil’s transformation industry recorded a trade deficit of USD 71.3 billion, the largest since the data series began in 1997.
Imports by the transformation industry reached USD 259.7 billion, up 8.6% from the previous year. CNI said chemicals, machinery and electronic equipment, and motor vehicles accounted for more than half of industrial imports.
Even with the record deficit, Brazilian industrial exports grew 3.7% in 2025 to USD 188.4 billion. The transformation industry’s share of total Brazilian exports edged up from 53.9% to 54.1%, despite a 1.7% decline in international prices for manufactured goods.
Semi-durable and non-durable consumer goods reached a record share of Brazil’s export basket, at 22.8%. The category was driven mainly by processed food and beverage sales, with beef exports to China highlighted in the report.
Main Trade Partners
Food, motor vehicles, and metallurgy accounted for 58% of Brazilian industrial exports, according to the study. The United States remained the main destination for Brazil’s transformation-industry exports, even though sales to the U.S. market fell 4.2% to USD 30.2 billion.
China increased its purchases of Brazilian industrial goods by 19.4%, reaching USD 22 billion in 2025. Food products were the main driver of that expansion. On the import side, China remained Brazil’s largest supplier of industrial goods, with sales of USD 70.6 billion.
Argentina also stood out. Brazilian exports to the neighboring country reached USD 18.1 billion in 2025, up 31.4% from the previous year. The automotive sector led the increase, with sales to Argentina rising 57.2%; passenger vehicles, trucks, and auto parts were the main exported items.