Brazil hopes state visit will boost trade

BEIJING - Brazil is making efforts to diversify its exports to China to increase bilateral trade, aiming at becoming the country's largest global trading partner, a senior Brazilian official said on Monday.

The South American nation wants to export not only raw materials, but also high-end consumer products to China, said Alessandro Teixeira, deputy minister of development, industry and foreign trade.

"Besides agricultural products and minerals, we plan to increase the export of high-value-added products, including clothes, cosmetics, shoes, gold and jewelry, to China this year," he said.

"China has a huge market for the fashion and luxury industries, which should be given attention by the Brazilian companies who have advantages in these fields," said Marco Tulio S. Cabral, first secretary of the Brazilian embassy in Beijing. "If our companies can see these changes in the Chinese market, they will make good profits by seizing their chances."

During Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff's six-day visit to China, which began on Monday, 24 Brazilian companies will come along to investigate Chinese business opportunities.

The non-agricultural products Brazil exports to China will increase rapidly this year, said Cesar Yu, chief representative at the Beijing office of the Brazilian Trade and Investment Promotion Agency, Apex-Brasil.

"Brazilian companies are making efforts in brand-building in the Chinese market, instead of providing raw materials," said Yu.

He said Brazilian coffee and honey dealers started marketing in China two years ago and they have gained rapid sales growth in the past two years. Eight high-end shoe brands have also come to China.

As Asia's largest economy and the world's second-largest, China is now Brazil's top trading partner. In 2010, Brazil exported $30.785 billion to China, a 46.5 percent increase over 2009, and imported $25.59 billion from China, with a surplus of $5.19 billion.

Teixeira said Brazil's exports to China in the first quarter of this year grew by more than 45 percent year-on-year and he is confident that the high growth rate will continue at least until the end of the year.

"Whole-year growth will be very impressive," he said, without elaborating.

Although Brazil became the biggest soybean exporter to China in 2010, with an export value of $7 billion, Cabral said the country expects China to import more agricultural and farming products, especially pork, from Brazil.

"We very much expect the Chinese government will open to pork imports from Brazil after our president's visit. We already export chicken, beef and many types of fruit to the Chinese market, and these products' export volume is growing fast," Cabral said.