Eight companies and an association of coffee producers from Japan participated this Friday in a meeting with the Minister of Agriculture, Neri Geller, in Brasília, in which they expressed interest in investing in railroads, highways, waterways and ports.
According to Geller, no cooperation agreement was signed with the Japanese government. However, companies in the financial sector, such as insurance companies, and, mainly, in the area of infrastructure and logistics, probed the real demands that Brazil currently has for investment.
The representatives of the companies wanted to know the expectation of investments in logistics needed today to boost the flow of Brazilian production of soy, coffee and chicken, pork and beef, according to the minister.
“The issue of private investment was discussed here, so that the Brazilian government could feel whether there is space and security for Japanese companies to invest in Brazil,” said Geller.
According to the Minister of Agriculture, Japanese investors have great potential to operate in Brazil to “help us solve infrastructure bottlenecks”. “Only one of the companies that were here has already invested US$500 million in the Port of Itaqui (MA) and another said it has US$140 billion in insurance offerings to help infrastructure companies,” he said.
“We tell them that we have the capacity to expand agricultural production, but we have bottlenecks in infrastructure and these companies work in logistics and want to invest in Brazil,” said Geller.
Accompanied by the deputy minister of Agriculture of Japan, Issao Harihara, representatives of the Japanese companies Mitsui, Mitsubishi and Sojitz, among others, attended the meeting.
Source: Valor Econômico
