Moving in the right direction

In October, Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro visited China for the first time after entering office. In November, President Xi Jinping visited Brazil to attend the BRICS leaders' meeting. During Xi's visit, China and Brazil signed many bilateral documents in areas such as health, transportation, investment and trade, and the two leaders issued a joint statement.

Recalling the conservative attitude and the doubt about China expressed by Bolsonaro during his election campaign and his stage of office, it is a healthy development that the two sides have reached an understanding on providing mutual support. The bilateral relationship between China and Brazil is again focused on mutual benefit. Under the guidance of the leaders of the two countries, Brazil and China have made further progress toward a better future of mutual trust and win-win results.

Since the establishment of diplomatic relations between China and Brazil 45 years ago, and with the diversified development of trade in goods, the further expansion of trade in services, and the gradual upgrading of financial and investment cooperation, the two countries have ushered in a new period of bilateral economic and trade relations.

In order to further promote high-level and high-quality cooperation between China and Brazil in the fields of economy, trade and investment, and to respond to the relevant elements mentioned by the heads of the two countries in their joint statement, the Chinese Academy of International Trade and Economic Cooperation of the Ministry of Commerce of China and the Institute for Applied Economic Research of the Ministry of Economy of Brazil, as the top-level high-end national think tanks in the field of applied economy in their respective countries and guided by the relevant government departments, jointly signed a memorandum of understanding on cooperation in Brasilia, on Dec 4.

Aimed at enhancing the anti-risk capacity of the two countries to cope with international economy and trade, the two sides will do the joint research focusing on three major areas of investment, trade and finance, assess the possible impact of the signing of a free trade agreement between China and Brazil and challenges and opportunities of Brazil's participation in the Belt and Road Initiative and the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank.

They will study on tariff barriers and non-tariff barriers to bilateral trade products, the effectiveness of bilateral investment facilitation agreements between China and Brazil, and other areas conducive to promoting bilateral practical economic and trade cooperation, so as to provide practical support for data analysis and policy recommendations of relevant government departments.

In 2018, the bilateral trade volume between China and Brazil reached $111.1 billion, according to China Customs Statistics, up 26.6 percent on a year-on-year basis, of which China's exports to Brazil accounted for $33.6 billion, an increase of 16.3 percent on a year-on-year basis, and China's imports from Brazil amounted to $77.5 billion, with a year-on-year growth of 31.7 percent. In 2019, China-Brazil trade in goods has continued to grow.

China's bilateral trade with Brazil reached $81.2 billion in the first three quarters of 2019, an increase of 6.9 percent on a year-on-year basis, of which China's exports to Brazil accounted for $24.3 billion, an increase of 3.4 percent on a year-on-year basis, and China's imports amounted to $56.9 billion, up 8.4 percent on a year-on-year basis.

China and Brazil have agreed to continue to expand the scale of bilateral trade, encourage its diversification, and solve related trade problems through institutional reforms. The two countries will continue to promote the diversified growth of bilateral agricultural exports in the future, and they have agreed to make trade in services the focus of cooperation, mainly related to IT, transportation, tourism, service outsourcing, consulting engineering and traditional Chinese medicine. The two countries have also agreed to an optimization agenda in 2020 for the High Committee for Coordination and Cooperation between China and Brazil, and to update and issue the 10-year cooperation plan originally signed in 2012.

China is willing to import more high-quality and high value-added products from Brazil that meet the needs of the Chinese market, and expand cooperation in agriculture, energy, mining, aerospace, and infrastructure construction between the two countries.

Scientific and technological innovation and the digital economy should be new growth points for cooperation between the two countries. China is encouraging its enterprises to carry out e-commerce, big data application, artificial intelligence and other services in Brazil, help Brazil broaden its information channels and develop e-commerce, especially, at the request of Brazil, promoting the digital development of its tourism industry and promote Brazilian agricultural products and daily consumer goods to enter the Chinese market as soon as possible.

It is difficult for developing countries to achieve rapid industrialization and urbanization only on their own. China and Brazil should strengthen their exchanges and cooperation, actively integrate into the global industrial chain and the global division of labor, and speed up economic transformation and industrial chain upgrading to create a new high ground for cooperation.

The author is a research assistant fellow of the Institute of American& Oceania Studies at the Chinese Academy of International Trade and Economic Cooperation, specialized in studies of Latin American and Caribbean countries' economy, trade and investment, Latin American Integration, Sino-Latin American economic and trade relations etc.

The author contributed this article to China Watch exclusively. The views expressed do not necessarily reflect those of China Watch.

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