BEIJING (AFP) — Brazil's President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva left Beijing Wednesday with oil and finance deals worth billions of dollars under his belt and a pledge to strengthen ties with China.
Lula made a last stop Wednesday at the China Academy of Space Technology -- where a joint programme that develops and operates Earth observation satellites is located -- after having met Chinese leaders Tuesday.
A senior Brazilian official told reporters that the two nations plan to jointly launch up to three satellites by 2013, but no details of the arrangements were given.
Chinese rockets have placed three jointly-developed China-Brazilian satellites into orbit since 1999, the last one in 2007, according to state press reports.
Lula's departure was announced by the official Xinhua news agency. He was due to fly to Turkey on the third leg of a trip that started in Saudi Arabia.
Before leaving Brazil, Lula had described the trip as "one of the most important" of his mandate amid a rise in the role of emerging nations at a time of global financial crisis.
Lula and his Chinese counterpart Hu Jintao agreed to strengthen ties and to deepen financial cooperation on economic and trade activities, according to a joint statement posted on the website of the foreign ministry here.
"The two leaders said that ensuring a closer strategic partnership between China and Brazil had even greater significance in the current complicated international situation," the statement said.
The two nations signed 13 agreements on Tuesday boosting trade and cementing ties, including a 10-billion-dollar loan deal from the China Development Bank to Brazil's state oil company Petrobras.
Petrobras also signed a long-term agreement with a subsidiary of China's giant oil refiner Sinopec for the export of crude oil.
China -- an energy-hungry nation that is hugely interested in Brazil's natural resources -- in March became the Latin American nation's biggest trading partner, ahead of the United States.
Brazilian exports to China -- mainly iron ore and soya products -- so far this year have grown 65 percent over the same period in 2008, a jump from 3.4 billion dollars to 5.6 billion dollars.
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