Much of that resulted from a 15.7percentt decline in petroleum imports as prices for crude oil declined throughout the month.
A decline in petroleum production since the 1950s resulted in a switch in the local economy to the manufacture of consumer goods, including low-voltage electrical equipment, clothing, footwear, and ceramic tiles and pottery.
Import prices fell 0.6 percent, from a decline in petroleum prices, but the inflation numbers embedded in the trade data showed inflation was at bay, ahead of a Federal Reserve meeting next week.
It fell slightly in 2012 (due in part to a decline in petroleum imports), to $540.4 billion from $560 billion in 2011.
A fall in petroleum purchases led overall imports to decline by $4.6 billion in December from the year-ago period.
That practice has changed during the last year, as the decline in crude oil prices made it unwise to buy petroleum for storage purposes.
Iran's veneer of stoicism toward the Western sanctions that have disrupted its economy showed some new strains on Monday, as the deputy oil minister acknowledged a decline in domestic petroleum production because of dwindling foreign investment, and four-year-old talks between the Iranians and Poland's biggest natural gas developer collapsed.
In other markets, declines were seen in petroleum and wheat, while slight advances occurred in silver, cattle, pork, corn and soybeans.
But in recent years, widespread mismanagement of its oil wealth caused a sharp decline in its petroleum production and exports, deeply damaging the country's economy as Venezuela descended into political turmoil.
However, a decline in world petroleum prices and the Brazilian economy coincided with the failure of OGX oil fields to produce at the rates predicted by Batista.
