Lowes companies, a retailer of home improvement products, reported cost of goods sold of $31,729 million for the fiscal year ended January 30, 2009. Its ported merchandise inventories of $7,611 million at the beginning of fiscal 2009 and 8,209 million at the beginning of fiscal 2009. It reported accounts payable to suppliers of $3,713 million at the beginning of fiscal 2009 and $4,109 million at the end of fiscal 2009. Compute the amount of cash paid to merchandise suppliers during fiscal 2009.