Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva

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.

Source: Xinhua

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