The visit of the Brazilian president, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, which should begin on April 12, will have an ambitious agenda that foresees the signing of numerous agreements and a large Brazilian delegation made up of around 300 members.
In the meetings, the Brazilian President will address economic and diplomatic issues, exposing the South American country’s intention to resume broader cooperation with developing countries and expand Brazil’s influence in the world, after the mandate of former President Jair Bolsonaro, who was marked by great isolation.
There is a projection by Brazilian diplomats that around 20 cooperation agreements will be signed between Brazil and China in different areas, with an emphasis on science and technology, economy, foreign trade, culture, industry, defense and education.
According to statements by the secretary for Asia and the Pacific of the Brazilian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Eduardo Paes Saboia, about ten days after Lula da Silva’s trip to China, many bilateral agreements are being negotiated, of which 20 have already been confirmed. “but this number may increase.”
One of the agreements in the economic area that generates expectations refers to the activation of a Chinese financing fund worth 20,000 million dollars (18,600 million euros) for investment in projects in Brazil.
The South American country also hopes to sign an alliance to develop the sixth generation of the Chinese-Brazilian satellite and, at the initiative of the Government of Lula da Silva, points to a joint declaration with China on climate and even the creation of a binational financing fund for the fight against climate change.
The forecast is that Brazil and China will also discuss issues of global governance, issues of interest to the BRICS (a group made up of Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa), and the Brazilian proposal on the creation of a group of countries not involved in the war provoked by the Russian invasion of the Ukraine to negotiate peace in that region.
Xi Jinping has just returned from a state visit to Moscow, where he met Russian President Vladimir Putin and presented him with Chinese proposals for peace in Ukraine, a fact that increases the certainty that the war in Eastern Europe will be a sensitive and important issue in the meeting between the Chinese leader and the Brazilian leader.
During the visit, Lula da Silva is expected to participate in a large business event that will bring together at least 240 Brazilian businessmen, with a strong presence of people linked to agribusiness who accompany the government delegation on the trip, as well as businessmen and representatives of the chinese government.
China is the main destination for Brazilian agribusiness exports and absorbed 31.9% of the sector’s sales abroad last year, according to data from the Ministry of Agriculture of the South American country.
Some 40 politicians, including Brazilian government ministers and invited parliamentarians, are expected to participate in the agendas of Lula da Silva’s visit to the Asian country.
The official program announced by the Brazilian government also includes a visit to Shanghai, the economic capital of China, where former Vice President Dilma Rousseff, who ruled Brazil from 2011 to 2016, will assume the leadership of the BRICS New Development Bank (NDB).
At the end of the trip, Lula da Silva will have held, in just three months of his term, meetings with the most important commercial partners of Brazil. In January, the president traveled to Argentina, in February he was in the United States, Brazil’s second largest trading partner and second only to China, on a trip that also included a meeting between him and US President Joe Biden.
China is, since 2009, the largest trading partner of Brazil and one of the main sources of investment in Brazilian territory. In 2022, the trade flow between the two countries reached a record of 150.5 billion dollars (139.4 billion euros).
Source: TSF
