Interview: Chinese Premier's LatAm visit to generate benefits for both regions -- Brazilian expert

Chinese Premier Li Keqiang's just-concluded visit to Brazil and three other Latin American nations will benefit both China and the Latin American countries, an expert on China-Brazil ties has said.

In an interview with Xinhua, Ronnie Lins, director of the China-Brazil Center, which works to promote business ties, said Li's stay in Brazil on May 18-20 brought about important strategic advances.

"In the current global state of adverse economic growth, it's necessary to take proactive measures to seek more accords, and identify new market niches," said Lins. "That's what Li Keqianq is very competently doing."

Li's four-nation tour has brought China closer to the Latin American continent and this will "certainly lead to China having greater influence" in the region, Lins said.

"Greater integration with China will be very welcome given the current and substantial belt-tightening problems of the Brazilian economy," Lins said.

"If most of what was agreed on materializes, Brazil will have a great opportunity to improve its productivity and make important progress in infrastructure development. That will benefit both Brazil and China," Lins said.

"We're going to wait for this long-running relationship to increasingly consolidate, because both countries, of continental proportions, will have much to gain," he concluded.

Among the 35 accords signed during Li's visit to Brazil, the most anticipated was an agreement to undertake a joint feasibility study for a proposed transcontinental railway connecting Brazil's Atlantic coast with Peru's Pacific coast, and creating an export corridor to facilitate South America's growing trade with China.

China also agreed to purchase 40 Brazilian-made Embraer airplanes, cooperate in the area of nuclear-energy technology, and help develop the auto industry in Jacarei, in southeast Sao Paulo state, Lins said. Endi