Roundup: Brazil has potential to be new production ground for high-tech Chinese goods

Brazil has the potential to become a new production ground for high-tech Chinese goods, given investment opportunities in the South American country as well as the joint efforts by the two countries to step up cooperation on innovation and technology-centered industrial parks.

Chinese and Brazilian officials signed an agreement in June 2015 to spur greater cooperation in technology-driven industrial production, and that could lead to the creation of binational industrial conglomerates.

China has surplus production capacity that could be relocated to other countries, Stephan Mothe, of Euromonitor International consulting, told Xinhua.

This kind of production investment can help Beijing strengthen ties with South American countries, as it has done with Brazil, since regional governments "look very favorably on" any investment that can generate jobs, said Mothe.

"Neither China nor Latin America is interested in maintaining a merely commercial economic relationship based on the sale of raw materials, especially given the crisis that exporters of raw materials are undergoing," added Mothe.

This shared aspiration to enrich ties lends even more importance to the Brazil-China agreement to jointly promote technology parks, an accord signed during Chinese Science and Technology Minister Wan Gang's visit to Brazil in June.

Technology parks are designed to draw high-tech companies, as well as institutions of higher learning, research centers and business incubators.

"Brazil and China, both being developing countries, need to speed up investment in innovation," said Wan, adding that "by joining forces, the two countries can promote a better future."

In China, technology parks have proliferated to the point where they account for nearly 15 percent of the gross national product. Meanwhile, there is a definite lack of technology-industry-centered infrastructure.

During his visit, Wan said that joint efforts on technology parks can help both countries take a step forward toward innovation.

The Sao Jose dos Campos, a leading Brazilian technology park visited by the Chinese minister, has so far had only initial contact with potential Chinese investors, but "the venue meets the conditions to attract companies in the sectors of energy, automobile manufacturing, aerospace and others," a spokesperson for the park told Xinhua on Friday.

Brazil's National Institute of Space Research (INPE) has three facilities at the park carrying out a variety of projects, including the satellites Brazil and China have been developing jointly since the 1980s.

China could, for example, choose to participate in the development of space rockets at Sao Jose dos Campos, an official from the park said, adding that the two sides are currently studying the possibilities for collaboration in this field.

Renewable energies, such as biomass and ethanol, represent another key technological segment at the park that could attract Chinese investment, especially since Brazil has ample experience in the field.

Concrete efforts are underway to explore the prospects for bilateral cooperation. In November, a delegation from the Chinese embassy in Brazil visited the southern state of Rio Grande do Sul, so as to gain firsthand knowledge of how the state's 12 technology parks are managed.

State government sources say Rio Grande do Sul offers investment opportunities in shipyards, oceanic industries, electronics, automobile and health sectors. Endi