With or without Lula, Brazilian agro-business takes on China
Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, at the Planalto Palace in Brasilia, March 15, 2023. REUTERS - ADRIANO MACHADO
Text by: Agnieszka Kumor
2 min
His trip was postponed indefinitely due to pneumonia. Brazilian President Lula was due to visit Beijing. The Brazilian delegation, for its part, is maintained. It has a hundred players in the trade of agricultural products. They are looking for new opportunities in Brazil's largest trading partner.
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Lula's state visit, which included a meeting with his Chinese counterpart, Xi Jinping, was postponed, but it was preceded by that of his Minister of Agriculture, Carlos Favaro, who, since Wednesday, March 22, has been conducting discussions on the spot to prepare the ground.
Trade in agricultural products at its zenith
It is indeed the entire Brazilian agro-business that is going on the offensive. Last year, China bought nearly a third of Brazil's agricultural exports. Six out of ten of Brazil's most exported agricultural products are consumed in China, including beef. Local demand for beef is increasing and domestic production cannot fully meet it.
The figures are dizzying: more than a million tons of beef, more than half a million tons of chicken, but above all more than 53 million tons of Brazilian soybeans were exported from Brazil to the Asian giant in 2022.
It is also to sell products with higher added value that the head of the powerful Brazilian Association of Vegetable Oil Industries is traveling. Also represented in the Brazilian delegation is the National Animal Protein Association, which would like to build more meat processing plants and more warehouses on Chinese soil to facilitate deliveries.
Beef embargo lifted
The two countries have yet to agree on a sanitary and phytosanitary protocol. But the tone has been set: the embargo on Brazilian beef, imposed a month ago because of an "atypical" case of mad cow disease discovered in the northern state of Para, has just been lifted by China.
Another topic under discussion is the creation of a bilateral fund that would finance the development of green technologies and renewable energies in both countries. According to the Brazilian Minister of Environment, Marina Silva, this fund could be used for reforestation and the development of the sustainable economy, but also for the production of green hydrogen, whose production generates very few greenhouse gas emissions.
Green hydrogen is the subject of a new global craze. But it currently accounts for only 2% of global production, as its production costs are still very high.
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- China
- Brazil
- Trade and Commerce