Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff avoided the thorny issue of China's currency in a summit with her Chinese counterpart Hu Jintao on Tuesday, but she came away with wider market access and investment pledges that may ease friction between the two emerging market giants.
Making her first visit to China since becoming president, Rousseff secured the top item on her wish list - concrete promises from her hosts that they would seek to buy more from Brazil than just raw materials such as iron ore and oil. China soared past the United States last year to become Brazil's biggest trading partner and investor, with more than $56 billion in trade.
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Rousseff did not raise the currency dispute with Hu in their formal meeting, Brazilian Trade Minister Fernando Pimentel told reporters, despite earlier signals she would. Yet Rousseff, a pragmatic leftist, did walk away with more than $1 billion worth of deals from Chinese companies for Brazilian aircraft and other goods - which could help address growing angst at home that an overvalued currency and a heavy tax load are making Brazil too expensive to compete abroad.
Separately, Rousseff brandished a potential investment of $12 billion by Taiwan's Foxconn, the maker of Apple Inc's iPhone and other goods. The omission of the yuan from the agenda will be a victory of sorts for China, which has resisted international pressure to raise sharply the value of its currency.
A joint declaration from the summit also failed to mention the currency, and made little progress in obtaining Chinese support for a permanent seat for Brazil on the United Nations Security Council. In it China said only it backed Brazil's "aspirations for a more prominent role in the United Nations."
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