China to pour $9bn into Brazil this year

BEIJING: China is expected to pour $9 billion into Brazil this year, with half for investment in the country's high-tech sector, state media said Tuesday, citing a senior Brazilian trade official.

Chinese investment in Brazil's technology industries will hit $4.5 billion this year, Alessandro Teixeira, Brazil's deputy minister of development, industry and foreign trade, said in comment carried by the China Daily.

Capital from China had previously been poured into the farm and mining sectors, and Brasilia has been urging Chinese companies to invest in non-raw material industries to help balance the country's economy, the report said.

"Seventy percent of the trade between Brazil and China is basically commodities," Teixeira said. "But we are keen to improve commercial relations in medium and high-end technology."

He added that both governments had reached an agreement to boost Chinese investment in the high-tech sector.

China has in recent years become Brazil's largest trading partner, overtaking the United States, and in 2010 was the largest investor in the South American nation, pumping in about $30 billion.

Two-way trade has grown from $2.3 billion in 2000 to $56.4 billion in 2010, according to Brazilian officials.

Chinese telecom equipment makers ZTE and Huawei Technologies Co have invested heavily in Brazil in recent years, the China Daily said.

ZTE has an industrial park in Hortolandia, close to Sao Paulo. The company's sales revenue in Brazil reached $600 million last year and is expected to grow to $1 billion this year, the report added.

In April, Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff said during a visit to China that Huawei had announced it will build a research centre in the Sao Paulo area, with total investment of $300-400 million.

Copyright AFP (Agence France-Presse), 2011