MONTEVIDEO – Uruguayan exports for the first 11 months of the year totaled $8.32 billion, down 11.7 percent from the same period in 2014, according to a report from Instituto Uruguay XXI, the government’s export- and investment-promotion agency.

Sales to China, a country that accounts for 18.6 percent of Uruguay’s exports, fell 6.7 percent, while recession-plagued Brazil, Montevideo’s No. 2 export market, bought 30.1 percent less.

Conversely, the period saw important increases in exports to the United States, 25.8 percent; Peru, 10.7 percent; Canada, 8.8 percent; and the Netherlands, 8.4 percent.

Foreign sales of beef, representing 18 percent of all exports in January-November, fell by 1.7 percent from the previous year, while soybean exports tumbled 30.2 percent.

Exports of wood products grew 15.8 percent, constituting 10.4 percent of all foreign sales.

Excluding petroleum and derivatives, Uruguay imported $7.9 billion worth of goods in January-November, a 10.7 percent decrease from the same period in 2014.