Official figures indicate that the value of Brazilian exports to Mainland China, Hong Kong and Macao was 20.9 percent greater last month than a year earlier, Reuters reports, without giving the value.

The news agency says Brazil had a foreign trade surplus of US$3.1 billion last month, bigger than forecast by analysts, who had been expecting the coronavirus outbreak in China to curtail Sino-Brazilian trade, which accounts for almost 30 percent of Brazilian exports.

The epidemic has yet to curb Brazilian exports to China, Reuters quotes a Brazilian official, Herlon Brandão, as saying.

Separately, a Brazilian newspaper, O Globo, reports that official figures show the growth in Brazilian exports to China was due to higher sales of crude oil, pork, beef, poultry, cast iron and manganese ore.