Chinese president begins state visit to Brazil

Chinese President Hu Jintao arrived in Brasilia Thursday afternoon to begin his first state visit to Brazil.

Hu said in a written speech upon arrival at the airport that his current visit aims to "push forward bilateral cooperation as well as the relations of strategic partnership" between China and Brazil.

Hu visited Brazil 10 years ago. The current visit is his first trip to south America after becoming president of China last year.

During his stay in Brazil which will last until next Tuesday, Hu is expected to confer with Brazilian President Luis Inacio Lula da Silva and leaders of the National Congress of Brazil.

"I believe that the visit will strengthen our mutual political trust, promote mutually-beneficial cooperation and push forward the relations of strategic partnership between China and Brazil," he said.

China and Brazil established full diplomatic relations 30 years ago. The two countries decided to build the "relations of strategic partnership" in the 1990s.

President Lula visited China earlier this year with a large number of business people. Brazil is the largest trading partner of China in Latin America while China is Brazil's third largest trading partner and export market.

Total trade volume between China and Brazil reached 7.989 billion US dollars last year, and the figure for January-September this year topped 9.296 billion US dollars, up 58.4 percent from the same period last year.

Statistics from China show that by September this year, China's investment in Brazil amounted to 130 million US dollars and Brazil's investment in China was about 120 million US dollars.

Brasilia is the first stop of Hu's visit to Brazil. He will also visit Rio de Janeiro and Sao Paulo.

Following his visit to Brazil, Hu will also visit Argentina, Chile and Cuba. He will attend the leaders informal summit meeting of APEC while staying in Chile.