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Brazil and Chile Discuss Human Rights
Written by Germano Neves
Tuesday, 24 August 2004
President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva is in Chile to discuss accords in the social sphere and collaboration in the United Nations Security Council. The President is accompanied by the Minister of Foreign Relations, Celso Amorim, and the Minister of Mines and Energy, Dilma Rousseff.
Brazil is Chile's fifth largest trade partner. The total value of trade between
the two countries, that is, the sum of exports and imports, reached nearly three
billion dollars last year. Since 2000 this figure had remained steady at 2.3
billion.
Chile exported US$ 838.9 million to Brazil last year, while its
imports from Brazil were on the order of over two billion dollars.
At a
meeting with delegations from the two countries at the La Moneda Palace,
President Lula and Chilean President Ricardo Lagos signed a bilateral
cooperation agreement in several areas, including human rights. "This area is an
absolute priority for us, and Chile has achieved success with the Solidary Chile
program," Lula affirmed at the signing ceremony.
The Executive Secretary
of the Brazilian Ministry of Development and Hunger Alleviation, Ana Fonseca,
and the Chilean Minister of Planning and Cooperation, Andres Irarrazaval, signed
a memorandum which will permit an exchange of experiences between the two
governments' social programs.
Other agreements were also signed. One of
them, between the Brazilian Agricultural Research Company (Embrapa) and the
Chilean Agricultural Research Institute, for cooperation in biotechnology and
peasant family farming, and another to promote trade and investment between the
two countries.
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