China, Brazil launch 20-bln-USD fund to support production capacity cooperation

BRASILIA, June 27 -- China and Brazil agreed Friday to set up a 20-billion-U.S.-dollar fund to back bilateral production capacity cooperation as they roll out more concrete programs to consolidate their partnership.

The agreement was one of the outcomes of the fourth meeting of the China-Brazil High-Level Coordination and Cooperation Committee (COSBAN), which was held here and co-chaired by visiting Chinese Vice Premier Wang Yang and Brazilian Vice President Michel Temer.

STRONGER PARTNERSHIP

Thanks to concerted efforts by both countries, the China-Brazil comprehensive strategic partnership has witnessed solid development over recent years, with high-level contact gathering momentum and mutual trust steadily deepening, said Wang.

He noted that China has been Brazil's biggest trading partner for six years in a row while Brazil has been among China's top 10 for five consecutive years.

Meanwhile, bilateral investment cooperation has entered the fast track, and two-way exchanges in such fields as science and technology, education, culture, tourism and sports have also been revving up, he added.

Recalling that both Chinese President Xi Jinping and Premier Li Keqiang have visited Brazil, respectively in July 2014 and in May 2015, Wang said the main task of the COSBAN meeting was to earnestly implement the important agreements the two sides reached during the two visits and effectively promote bilateral practical cooperation.

For his part, Temer said the Brazil-China relationship has been leapfrogging over recent years, with bilateral cooperation bearing rich fruit in various fields and people-to-people exchanges becoming increasingly close.

Brazil, he said, is willing to work with China to expand bilateral trade and investment and boost cooperation in such key areas as production capacity and infrastructure construction, so as to deepen their win-win collaboration in an all-round way.

CLOSER COOPERATION

Besides launching the fund, the two sides also agreed to match up their lists of priority areas and specific projects in bilateral production capacity cooperation and hammer out a list of early harvest projects.

Technical experts from the two countries conferred on the work plan for building a transcontinental railway envisaged to traverse Brazil and Peru and link South America's Atlantic and Pacific coasts, and agreed to start field survey.

Also, the two sides agreed to stabilize their trade volume and optimize the trade structure, and set up a special work group to boost trade in services.

The Chinese side expressed willingness to import more of Brazil's competitive products, including manufactured goods, and see more qualified Brazilian meat enterprises register in China.

In addition, they agreed to continue strengthening their cooperation in science and technology, education, culture, health and other people-to-people areas, and formally establish an exchange and cooperation mechanism on science and technology parks.

They also agreed to jointly develop China-Brazil Earth resources satellite 04A and set up a health sub-committee to promote bilateral health cooperation.

Furthermore, the two sides agreed to strengthen communication in such areas as macroeconomic policy, fiscal policy and finance and intensify coordination in international affairs, so as to jointly shore up the global economic recovery.

More than 100 government officials and business leaders from the two countries attended the COSBAN meeting.