Brazil’s leader to leave China with deals under belt

CHINA: Brazil’s President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva was to make a final stop at a joint space program with China Wednesday before leaving Beijing, after inking oil and finance deals worth billions of dollars.

Lula was scheduled to visit the China Academy of Space Technology, where a program of cooperation between the two nations that develops and operates Earth observation satellites is located.

He was then due to fly to Turkey on the third leg of a trip that started in Saudi Arabia.

Before leaving Brazil, Lula described the trip as “one of the most important” of his mandate amid a rise in the role of emerging nations at a time of global crisis.

Lula and his Chinese counterpart Hu Jintao agreed to strengthen ties and to deepen financial cooperation on economic and trade activities, according to a joint statement posted on the website of the foreign minsistry here.

“The two leaders said that ensuring a closer strategic partnership between China and Brazil had even greater significance in the current complicated international situation,” the statement said.

The two nations signed 13 agreements on Tuesday boosting trade and cementing ties, including a 10-billion-dollar loan deal from the China Development Bank to Brazil’s state oil company Petrobras.

Petrobras also signed a long-term agreement with a subsidiary of China’s giant oil refiner Sinopec for the export of crude oil.

China - an energy-hungry nation that is hugely interested in Brazil’s natural resources - in March became the Latin American nation’s biggest trading partner, ahead of the United States.

Brazilian exports to China - mainly iron ore and soya products - so far this year have grown 65 percent over the same period in 2008, a jump from 3.4 billion dollars to 5.6 billion dollars. BEIJING, Wednesday, AFP