Brazilian President Wants To
Boost Trade With Italy
RIO DE JANEIRO - Brazil's President Luiz
Inacio Lula da Silva said on Tuesday that he
wishes to boost his country's trade with
Italy.
Earlier in the day, President Lula and
Italy's Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi
participated in a business forum in Sao
Paulo, which gathered investors from both
countries.
In his speech, Lula said that, in the
2002-08 period, trade between Brazil and
Italy increased threefold, totaling 10
billion U.S. dollars. However, the Brazilian
president believed those figures can be
improved even more.
"More trade will be our answer to the
international financial crisis. We want to
break the 10 billion U.S. dollar barrier in
order to reflect the size and potential of
our economies," he said.
According to Lula, Brazil’s current economic
scenario favors new investments. He said the
2014 Brazil FIFA World Cup and the 2016
Olympic Games in Rio de Janeiro will require
large investment in infrastructure.
In the first five months of 2010,
Brazil-Italy trade reached 1.6 billion U.S.
dollars, up 21 percent from the same period
last year. In 2009, the trade amounted to
6.7 billion dollars.
Brazil's imports from Italy are mostly
machinery, vehicles and tractors'
components. Italy's imports are mainly iron
ore and coffee beans. |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
