Chinese investments vital to Brazil, experts say

RIO DE JANEIRO - Chinese Premier Li Keqiang's recent visit to Brazil will lead to huge investments vital to boosting the South American country's economy, local experts said.

Li's visit is "very important" to Brazil, during which bilateral agreements were signed to benefit the latter in fields ranging from aviation, automobiles, manufacturing, electricity to mining and food processing, Paulo Wrobel, a research fellow with the BRICS Policy Center, said.

He told Xinhua Thursday that he was particularly impressed with China's commitments to Brazil's state-run oil firm Petrobras, among others.

"The investment in Petrobras, the resumption of Brazilian meat exports to China and the acquisition of the local bank BBM by a Chinese bank are all important news," Wrobel said.

During his stay in Brazil, Li also announced the establishment of a special fund totaling 30 billion U.S. dollars to back up production capacity cooperation between China and Latin America.

Claudio Frishtak, from the consulting company Inter B, told the daily newspaper O Globo that the Chinese investments would boost the Brazilian economy in a slowdown.

He believed that benefits from the investments would be felt in sectors such as construction and heavy machinery, and would be translated into an increase in Brazil's gross domestic product (GDP) in 2016.

Brazilian experts also spoke highly of the project of a transcontinental railway connecting Brazil's Atlantic coast to Peru's Pacific coast.

The ambitious plan would lead to a shortcut for transport and benefit the logistics business, Paulo Resende, from the Dom Cabral Foundation, told daily O Globo.

By passing through the Andes mountains, "the distance to Europe is cut by half and the distance to China is cut by a third," he said.