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"We have an extraordinary relationship with China, a relationship that every day gets more acute and stronger," Lula said before his meeting with Xi. Brazil and China need to work together so that the relationship is not merely one of commercial interest, he added. China and Brazil did agree to set up a working group to pursue cooperation on semiconductors, strengthening ties with Beijing in areas of sensitive technology. Brazil is now the largest recipient of Chinese investment in Latin America, driven by spending on high tension electricity transmission lines and oil production. On Friday, the two countries agreed to encourage their companies to invest in each country in infrastructure, energy transition, logistics, mining, agriculture and high-tech industries.

☆ Brazilians offer fresh perks for BYD plant as Ford talks stall
▼ + stars: | 2023-04-13 | by ( Lisandra Paraguassu | ) www.reuters.com time to read: +2 min

REUTERS/Stephane MaheBRASILIA, April 13 (Reuters) - Brazilian officials are offering fresh incentives including land for Chinese manufacturer BYD to build an electric car plant in Bahia state amid stalled talks to take over a closed Ford plant, said three people familiar with discussions in Shanghai on Thursday. However, Brazilian officials on Thursday discussed an alternative site in Bahia where BYD could build a factory from scratch if the talks with Ford prove futile. Ford and BYD did not immediately respond to requests for comment. BYD made it clear they would have no issue setting up a new plant, the sources said. However, drawn out talks with Ford have stalled plans.

☆ Brazil lures China's Cofco to finance recovery of degraded land
▼ + stars: | 2023-04-12 | by ( Lisandra Paraguassu | ) www.reuters.com time to read: +3 min

"They have every interest," said Augustin, adding that a Cofco delegation is expected for talks in Brasilia next month. China is Brazil's biggest trade partner and Brazil accounts for 22% of Chinese imports, driven largely by farm goods. One version would have farmers guarantee sale of their production to the companies that finance land recovery, he said. "You don't need to deforest another hectare to increase (farm) production," Augustin said. Agriculture Ministry studies estimate a cost of 15,000 to 23,000 reais to recover one hectare of degraded land.

Bolsonaro's electoral outlook contrasts sharply with former U.S. President Donald Trump, another right-wing populist who challenged the results of his failed re-election campaign. Bolsonaro never conceded his narrow defeat in the October election and continues to question the reliability of Brazil's voting system. RISING CONSERVATIVE STARSStill, conservative powerbrokers allied with Bolsonaro are ready to reshuffle the deck for the next election cycle. He said a TSE decision to bar Bolsonaro from running would only boost the ex-president's political appeal. Any right-wing substitute could win with his endorsement, he added, while side-stepping the high rejection rates Bolsonaro faced as a candidate last year.

RIO DE JANEIRO, April 11 (Reuters) - Brazilian planemaker Embraer SA (EMBR3.SA) aims to sign a deal for the sale of 20 commercial jets to a Chinese airline during President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva's visit to China this week, two people familiar with the matter told Reuters on Tuesday. The deal would mark a breakthrough for Embraer in China, where it has struggled to find new business since the 2016 closure of a joint venture at a factory in Harbin. That venture with Chinese group Avic, launched in 2003 during Lula's first presidential term, produced a previous generation of regional jets and Legacy 650 executive jets. Embraer has delivered 110 commercial aircraft to Chinese airlines, including 70 to Hainan Airlines (600221.SS) and 20 to China Southern (600029.SS), according to securities filings. The planemaker has not received a new order from a Chinese airline since leaving Harbin in 2016.

BRASILIA, April 5 (Reuters) - A Supreme Court judge backed a government move to crack down on illegal gold mining in Brazil, suspending a legal practice of buyers accepting the origin of the precious metal with paper receipts based on the "good faith" of the seller. The injunction by Justice Gilmar Mendes gave the government 90 days to adopt a new regulatory framework for the gold trade to stop the sale of gold mined illegally from indigenous lands and other environmentally protected areas. The previous government of President Jair Bolsonaro eased environmental protections and encouraged wildcat mining in the Amazon rainforest. A surge in illegal mining on the Yanomami indigenous reservation caused disease and malnutrition that led the Lula government to declare a humanitarian crisis. The Brazilian Institute of Mining (Ibram), which represents gold mining companies such as AngloGold Ashanti Ltd (ANGJ.J) and Yamana Gold Inc (YRI.TO), as well as multinational giants such as Vale (VALE3.SA), Rio Tinto Ltd (RIO.AX) and BHP Group Ltd (BHP.AX), said 20% of Brazilian gold had no declared origin in 2021, citing data from the National Mining Agency.

☆ Brazil envoy met Putin to push Ukraine peace talks - CNN Brasil
▼ + stars: | 2023-04-03 | by ( ) www.reuters.com time to read: +2 min

BRASILIA, April 3 (Reuters) - Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva sent his top foreign policy adviser to speak to Russian leader Vladimir Putin about potential peace talks to end the war in Ukraine, CNN Brasil reported on Monday. "It would be an exaggeration to say the doors are open (to peace talks), but it's not true to say they are totally closed," the envoy Celso Amorim told CNN Brasil in an interview published on its website. Two government officials told Reuters that Amorim stopped in Paris on his way back to Brazil, but they provided no details of his engagements there. Lula has proposed creating a group of countries to mediate peace talks between Russia and Ukraine in a war that has raged for more than a year. Reporting by Anthony Boadle and Lisandra Paraguassu; Editing by Brad Haynes and Jonathan OatisOur Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.

☆ Brazil meal payments overhaul delayed by central bank standoff
▼ + stars: | 2023-03-31 | by ( Marcela Ayres | ) www.reuters.com time to read: +5 min

The Finance Ministry says the central bank has jurisdiction to regulate payment systems, but sources said the central bank resisted early proposals to shake up the market and sought to keep its hands off the segment. The bank's staff believes the voucher market presents no systemic risk. The standoff has added to already high tensions between the Finance Ministry and central bank, the sources said on condition of anonymity. The central bank declined to comment on its reported resistance to regulating the market. The ministry told Reuters such regulation "goes beyond its competencies," and should be handled by the Finance Ministry and the central bank.

☆ Brazil unveils new budget rules to ease market jitters on fiscal discipline
▼ + stars: | 2023-03-30 | by ( Marcela Ayres | ) www.reuters.com time to read: +2 min

BRASILIA, March 30 (Reuters) - Brazil's Finance Ministry unveiled on Thursday a proposal for new fiscal rules to balance limits on spending growth with the government's vow to boost social programs and public investment. The new fiscal framework proposed in a Finance Ministry presentation on Thursday combines a looser spending cap with primary budget targets, as reported by Reuters on Wednesday. Spending growth would also be limited to 70% of revenue growth in the prior 12 months. The primary budget target would have a margin of plus or minus 0.25 percentage points. However, the Finance Ministry recently estimated that the shortfall will be 107.6 billion reais, equal to 1.0% of GDP, helped by a jump in expected tax revenue.

BRASILIA, March 30 (Reuters) - Brazil's far-right former President Jair Bolsonaro, who never conceded defeat in last year's election, returns from self-imposed exile in Florida on Thursday to lead the opposition to leftist President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva. Bolsonaro left for the United States two days before he was due to hand over the presidential sash to Lula on Jan. 1. His return to Brazil is eagerly awaited by the party's leader Valdemar Costa Neto, who wants Bolsonaro to become the leader of the opposition to the Lula administration and lead the PL into municipal elections next year. "Bolsonaro will lead the opposition and travel around Brazil preaching the party's liberal values and helping the PL grow," he told Reuters, outlining a plan for a right-wing comeback in the 2026 presidential elections. Barreto said her ambitions may provide an outlet for the ex-president's supporters if legal probes lead electoral authorities bar him from seeking office.

BRASILIA, March 23 (Reuters) - Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva heads to China this weekend for a five-day visit to refresh relations with his country's largest export market and seek new Chinese investment in the Latin American country. "Brazil has to keep a flexible and pragmatic position in this dispute between China and the United States," said Senator Hamilton Mourao, who as Brazilian vice president met with Xi in Beijing in 2019. CHINESE INVESTMENTLula drew Brazil closer to China and traveled twice to Beijing during his two presidential terms from 2003 to 2010. Trade relations were not affected by the diplomatic storm, though Chinese investment stalled, due in part to the pandemic preventing China's executives from visiting Brazil. By 2021, investment by Chinese companies in Brazil recovered to the level of 2017, according to the China-Brazil Business Council, which forecasts steady growth in coming years.

Lula departs for China this weekend, but many executives and lobby groups have traveled ahead of the president, government officials said. JBS representatives said the company aims to bolster commercial ties with China, a key trading partner. In a statement, ABPA said they are seeking recognition from Beijing that Rio Grande do Sul and Parana are free of foot-and-mouth disease without vaccination, in order to export pork with bones and pork offal. China buys 44% of Brazil's pork exports by volume and around 14% of its chicken exports, according to ABPA data for the first two months of 2023. Some 62% of Brazil's beef exports went to China last year.

☆ Debate grows among Lula's team over Brazil fuel tax policy
▼ + stars: | 2023-02-24 | by ( ) www.reuters.com time to read: +3 min

Former far-right Jair Bolsonaro unveiled the fuel tax cut last year as he sought to ease inflation and win over voters ahead of the election which he eventually lost to Lula. Since Lula's victory, debate has raged within his Workers Party (PT) over what to do with the costly and popular measure. Tensions are now mounting over whether to extend further the gasoline and ethanol tax waiver. In a series of Twitter posts, Congresswoman Gleisi Hoffmann, president of Lula's Workers Party (PT), said fuel taxes should only resume once state-run oil giant Petrobras (PETR4.SA) defines a new pricing policy. Vice-President Geraldo Alckmin said on Friday the government had not yet made a decision on fuel taxes.

☆ Deforestation in Brazil's Amazon falls in first month under Lula
▼ + stars: | 2023-02-10 | by ( ) www.reuters.com time to read: +2 min

REUTERS/Ueslei MarcelinoSAO PAULO, Feb 10 (Reuters) - Deforestation in Brazil's Amazon rainforest fell in January from a year earlier, satellite data showed on Friday, in the first monthly figures under President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva. In mid-January, Brazilian environmental agents launched their first anti-logging raids under Lula, who has pledged to end surging destruction under his predecessor Jair Bolsonaro. The fresh figures come after Reuters reported exclusively on Thursday that the United States was considering its first contribution to a multilateral fund aimed at fighting Amazon deforestation, with a possible announcement during President Joe Biden's meeting with Lula at the White House on Friday. The Brazilian-administered Amazon Fund, supported mainly by Norway and Germany, was reactivated by Environment Minister Marina Silva the day she took office last month, after being frozen since 2019 under Bolsonaro. The Brazilian government is also fighting wildcat mining on Yanomami land in the Amazon, its largest indigenous reservation, amid a humanitarian crisis blamed on illegal gold miners.

That window has been scrapped, with the ships now authorized to dock between Feb. 26 and March 3, the Brazil's foreign ministry said. A Brazilian military source confirmed that the federal government, via the foreign ministry, had shifted the dates and blocked the Iranian ships from docking. "The Iranian ships could not come during this period." A spokesperson for Brazil's foreign ministry said it was a "wrong assumption" to say Washington had pressured Brazil. Lula recoiled at U.S. sanctions on Iran and has declined to choose sides in the Russia-Ukraine war, saying Brazil is neutral and wants dialogue to reach peace.

☆ Lula's latest attack on Brazil's central bank weighs on markets
▼ + stars: | 2023-02-03 | by ( Marcela Ayres | ) www.reuters.com time to read: +3 min

Lula resumed an offensive agains the central bank in a Thursday TV interview in which he suggested a review of the institution's formal autonomy by the time bank chief Roberto Campos Neto ends his term in December 2024. Those remarks came a day after the central bank signaled it could hold interest rates at a six-year high for longer than markets expect due to fiscal risks under Lula. Brazil's interest rate futures also rose more than 1% in both short and long maturities. Analysts said Lula's comments were weighing on asset prices, with no truce in sight since the leftist president reiterated that "the interest rate issue" is on the agenda. Vitoria acknowledged Brazil has the highest real interest rate in the world.

☆ Brazil senator says he attended election conspiracy meeting with Bolsonaro
▼ + stars: | 2023-02-02 | by ( Ricardo Brito | ) www.reuters.com time to read: +3 min

BRASILIA, Feb 2 (Reuters) - A Brazilian senator said on Thursday that a close ally of former President Jair Bolsonaro tried to persuade the senator to join a conspiracy to overturn the far-right leader's electoral loss last year. Senator Marcos do Val told a news conference that he had been invited to a meeting on Dec. 9 with then-President Bolsonaro by his associate, former lawmaker Daniel Silveira. At the meeting, Silveira asked the senator to try to get the head of the electoral court to make compromising comments in a taped conversation that could lead to the judge's arrest, Val said. The senator told reporters that Bolsonaro "sat in silence" while Silveira laid out the plot against Justice Alexandre de Moraes, a Supreme Court judge running Brazil's top electoral authority (TSE). Silveira told the former president that Val, a Bolsonaro supporter, could be trusted and asked Bolsonaro to present "the idea that would save Brazil" to him, according to the Veja report.

The sharp contrast with Bolsonaro, who criticized environmental agents, was a relief to some scientists concerned that the retreating Amazon rainforest may be near a point of no return. Ibama's staffing and resources expanded in Lula's 2003-2010 presidency, when he managed to reduce Amazon deforestation by 72%. Rodrigo Agostinho, whom Lula tapped to run Ibama, told Reuters in an interview that the agency now has about 350 active field agents for all of Brazil. That is less than half what it had at the start of Bolsonaro's term and well below the 2,000 field agents at the peak of its powers, he added. Sidelining Ibama, Bolsonaro deployed the military to protect the Amazon, but their inexperience in conservation failed to lower deforestation while running up a massive bill.

☆ Brazilian ex-senator takes over as Petrobras CEO; shares fall
▼ + stars: | 2023-01-26 | by ( Marta Nogueira | ) www.reuters.com time to read: +3 min

Prates was unanimously approved by the board, on which he will also hold a seat, Petrobras said in a securities filing. He has said the Lula government would not take an aggressively interventionist approach to Petrobras. Petrobras made bumper payouts in recent quarters, but Prates has said the company cannot "just keep tapping sub-salt oil and paying dividends". Prates, who was a senator for the past four years, is the first politician in several years to hold a high-ranking office at Petrobras. Earlier in the day, the Brazilian Senate's official gazette published the resignation of Prates as a lawmaker.

☆ Brazil, Argentina to encourage trade, says Haddad; plays down common currency
▼ + stars: | 2023-01-23 | by ( Lisandra Paraguassu | ) www.reuters.com time to read: +2 min

His remarks came after Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva and Argentine leader Alberto Fernandez published a joint article saying their aim for greater economic integration included studies of a common South American currency. Haddad, who floated such a possibility in an article last year, said removing trade barriers between the two largest economies in South America could involve using a single currency for commerce, given a lack of U.S. dollars in Argentina. "Trade is really bad and the problem is precisely the foreign currency, right? Haddad noted Argentina was an important buyer of Brazilian industrial goods and that "several possibilities" were being floated to circumvent its currency problems, though no decision had been made. The Financial Times had previously reported, citing Argentina's Economy Minister Sergio Massa, that the neighboring nations would announce this week they were starting preparatory work on a common currency.

Reuters exclusively accompanied raids led by environmental agency Ibama in the rainforest state of Para to stop loggers and ranchers illegally clearing the forest. The agency has also launched raids this week in the states of Roraima and Acre, Ibama environmental enforcement coordinator Tatiane Leite said. Lula on the campaign trail last year pledged to put Ibama back in charge of combating deforestation with beefed-up funding and personnel. But Ibama agents told Reuters that they already felt more empowered by Lula announcing environmental protection as a top priority. His government instituted a gag order forbidding Ibama agents from speaking to the press, which agents say has already been reversed under Lula.

☆ Embattled U.S. Rep. Santos was drag queen in Brazil pageants, say associates
▼ + stars: | 2023-01-19 | by ( Steven Grattan | ) www.reuters.com time to read: +2 min

The embattled freshman congressman has also faced calls from fellow New York Republicans to step down over fabrications about his career and history. Three years later, Santos competed in a drag beauty pageant in Rio, Rochard said. Another person from Niteroi who knew the congressman but asked not to be named said he participated in drag queen beauty pageants and aspired to be Miss Gay Rio de Janeiro. Santos is the first openly gay Republican to win a House seat in Congress as a non-incumbent, but has positioned himself as a staunch conservative on many social issues. Santos competed in a drag beauty pageant that year but lost, Rochard said.

[1/5] Supporters of Brazil's former President Jair Bolsonaro demonstrate against President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva as security forces operate, outside Brazil?s National Congress in Brasilia, Brazil, January 8, 2023. Launched in November 2020 and run by Brazil's central bank, Pix is free of charge for individuals, allowing them to instantly transfer money to others via online banking apps. Since its launch, over 133 million Brazilians and almost 12 million companies have made or received Pix transfers, according to the central bank. INVESTIGATIVE TRAILPolice, money-laundering experts and central bank officials said Pix donations will be central to investigators' efforts to uncover who orchestrated the insurrection. Pix transfers are covered by bank secrecy laws, and police can only access a suspect's transaction history with judicial authorization.

[1/2] Security forces operate as supporters of Brazil's former President Jair Bolsonaro demonstrate against President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, outside Brazil’s National Congress in Brasilia, Brazil, January 8, 2023. The battalion of troops assigned to guard the presidential palace did not respond either until rioters had entered and trashed the palace, according to a Reuters witness. Four on-duty staffers from the National Security Adviser's office (GSI) were quickly overwhelmed inside the presidential palace and their office ransacked. Presidential Chief of Staff Rui Costa said the government now faces the challenge of undertaking a "decontamination" of the security forces and holding those responsible accountable. "This excessive participation of the military and military police in politics is progressively leading to ideological contamination of the forces," Costa said.

☆ Brazil police find draft decree in ex-minister's house to revert election -source
▼ + stars: | 2023-01-12 | by ( Ricardo Brito | ) www.reuters.com time to read: +2 min

My conscience is clear regarding my actions as minister," Torres wrote. Analysts said the measures proposed in the document would amount to an unconstitutional conspiracy to meddle in the election. A lawyer for the former justice minister, Demostenes Torres told Reuters he was not aware of the document, but noted that it was "impossible" to change the election result. The document was ready for presidential signature, the source told Reuters, requesting anonymity to discuss an ongoing investigation. He briefly posted a video this week on social media suggesting Lula had in fact lost the election.

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