A golden opportunity for China and Brazil

Brazil is hosting, for the third time, a BRICS Summit. The summit is expected to result in pragmatic decisions, fostering cooperation among the five countries. The meeting is taking place at a moment when the growth of the global economy is negatively affected by rising protectionism. In fact, several economies are suffering the negative consequences of the global economic uncertainty stemming from the present situation. Complementarity among BRICS countries might provide some much-needed dynamism.

The BRICS group was created as a tool to influence global governance. A precondition for being able to have such influence is to achieve a minimum degree of convergence of objectives and identify common issues, so that the five countries can act together in the same direction. This need to deepen mutual knowledge to identify common objectives has led, over time, to a great deal of dispersion of the objectives, as indicated in the various declarations following each summit. Several measures have been adopted to promote the group, but additional mechanisms should be established to intensify intra-BRICS cooperation in a number of areas.

Each summit is expected to provide further initiatives toward intensifying the links among the five economies, and a good deal has already been achieved. But apart from the joint decisions, these are also opportunities for bilateral talks between heads of state, so a number of bilateral commitments are also expected at the end of the meeting.

As far as the relationship between China and Brazil is concerned, the bilateral talks will take place less than one month after the visit of the Brazilian president to China. It is expected that several bilateral documents will be signed on this occasion.

Furthermore, these talks take place a few months after the revitalization of the Sino-Brazilian High-Level Commission, an indication of a renewed interest in strengthening bilateral relations.

The Brazilian government has on several occasions emphasized it is committed to opening up the economy and building a friendly environment for business. It has already initiated a number of initiatives in this direction, which oppose trade protectionism. It would, therefore, be no surprise if the Summit Declaration brings a denunciation of the growing protectionist trend, apart from providing explicit support to the World Trade Organization. This is likely also to be present in the China-Brazil Declaration.

Brazil, like other economies in Latin America, has been experiencing low growth for quite some time. Furthermore, in all these cases there is an excess demand for investment in infrastructure, a basic condition to foster growth. China, at the same time, has become one of the most important sources of resources, eagerly looking for opportunities to invest.

As an outcome of this matching of demand and supply, China has become one of the most important investors in the region. But there is still a lot to be done.

China has signaled its commitment to foster imports, and this is a valuable opportunity both for dealing with this issue at the BRICS level as well as on bilateral terms.

China has also become the technological frontier in several sectors. It is expected that joint initiatives — at the bilateral or group level — might foster technology transfer to partner countries, as has been signaled by the Chinese government.

Another increasingly important set of issues has to do with combating climate change. China is a leader when it comes to reducing pollution and generating clean energy — solar and wind energy in particular. Brazil, on its part, has one of the cleanest energy matrices, even though it has been accused of, among other things, not doing enough to control the fires in the Amazon region. Also, Brazil has a good deal to offer in terms of technological advancement in agriculture.

Areas of potential complementarity are rather diversified, ranging from satellite construction to health issues, cultural initiatives and many others.

It seems clear that China and Brazil have a lot to gain from project financing and sharing experiences and by taking joint initiatives, as well as making joint commitments to BRICS. The BRICS New Development Bank can play a major role in this regard. The most important aspect is to foster and deepen the bilateral dialogue already started at the highest level, so as to build a convergent vision of the global scenario and maximize the opportunities of the potential complementarity.

The author is undersecretary for foreign investment, Ministry of Economy, Brazil. Opinions herein are personal and might not correspond to the official position of the Ministry or China Daily.

SHI YU / CHINA DAILY