RIO DE JANEIRO, April 24 -- China is Brazil's biggest foreign investor so far this year, according to consulting firm Dealogic on Monday.

In the first four and half months of 2017, Chinese investors spent 5.67 billion U.S. dollars on mergers and acquisitions, representing 37.5 percent of total investment in the country.

Chinese investment in Brazil up to mid-April amounts to nearly half of the 11.92 billion U.S. dollars China spent in 2016.

Trailing China were Argentina and Netherlands, with 1.6 billion and 1.1 billion U.S. dollars respectively.

The rise in Chinese investment comes at a time when Brazil is improving its trade balance with China, thanks to increased iron and petroleum exports.

Brazil's positive trade balance went from one billion U.S. dollars in the first quarter of last year to 5.5 billion U.S. dollars in the same period of this year, according to the Ministry of Industry and Foreign Trade.