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Brazilian tourism minister hopes to attract more Chinese visitors
BRASILIA—Brazilian Minister of
Tourism Marta Suplicy hopes her upcoming visit to China will be an
opportunity to learn from the preparations for the 2008 Olympic Games
and attract more visitors to her country.
Suplicy expressed the hope in a recent interview with Xinhua at her
office in the capital city Brasilia. The minister is set to begin her
trip to China later this month, the fourth in three decades. She said
she would first of all learn exactly how China has prepared for the
August Olympic Games in Beijing. “Everything we have heard thus far is
that China has prepared very well for the event and has paid a lot of
attention to every detail,” the minister said.
Suplicy expressed confidence that China’s organizational work “will help
Brazil to prepare for the football World Cup in 2014 and for the
possibility of being the Olympic host for the 2016 games.” The minister
was also eager to exploit China’s market potential for tourism,
forecasting “50 million Chinese people vacationing throughout the globe”
in 2010. She said only 37,000 Chinese tourists visited Brazil in 2006,
but arrivals are estimated to hit 100,000 in 2008. There are also other
desired changes. In 1993, 30 percent of Chinese travelers to Brazil came
for pleasure, while 70 percent were on business, she said.
In 2004, 81 percent of Chinese tourists came for a vacation, with
Beijing, Shanghai and Guangzhou listed as the top cities of origin, she
added. The average age of tourists is between 35 and 44. The number of
children under the age of 14 has increased, a sign of more Chinese
families traveling to Brazil, according to the minister. Brazil is
making preparations for new arrivals from China. “We carried out a poll
and found that there is not a search for beaches and sun, like
throughout Europe, but rather for natural beauty, such as bird watching,
waterfalls, fauna and flora, music and soccer. This knowledge allows us
to gear our publicity in that direction,” Suplicy said.
“We cannot waste one minute because the competition to receive as many
Chinese tourists as possible will be great,” She told Xinhua. As one of
the attractions, “I will inaugurate a luxury train that will travel from
Curitiba, in Parana, to the Iguazu waterfalls,” she said. Brazil also
plans to promote tourism during the 2008 Olympics in Beijing.
“We would like to be able to have shows and demonstrations of Brazilian
products in downtown Beijing, at the House of Brazil. Wewill also try to
spread as much publicity as possible, even buyinga piece of the stadium
to announce ‘Visit Brazil’,” Suplicy said. Meanwhile, the minister
admitted that Chinese restaurants and Chinese tourist guides are still
inadequate in Brazil. But she said her country “wants to help build the
infrastructure and have some type of cooperation in this area.”
Brazil’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs reiterated Thursday that the
Brazilian government opposed the referendum on UN membership being
pursued by the Taiwan authorities. “The Brazilian government reiterates
its firm support for the one-China policy and the peaceful efforts in
the sense of reunification of Chinese territory,” the ministry said in a
statement. The referendum will not contribute to peace, stability and
security in the region, it added.
State-owned metal trader China Minmetals Corp. announced on Friday that
it would design and equip a blast furnace for Brazilian pig iron
producer Cosipar. The project, with a contract value of nearly 300
million yuan (about 42.2 million U.S. dollars), would include project
design, equipment, technical services and training for 450-cubic-meter
blast furnace, said the company.
It was another major Latin American deal for Minmetal, which previously
undertook a 2 billion yuan metallurgical equipment project for Brazilian
steel plant Gerdau Acominas. The company bought a majority stake in
Northern Peru Copper of Canada in January, acquiring the property of El
Galeno copper and gold mine and Hilorico gold mine in northern Peru.—Xinhua |
