German and Brazilian industry leaders launched a business conference on August 25 against the backdrop of rapidly growing economic ties between the two countries that seemed to show the surge would go on. “German company investment in Brazil is already at a record level,” said Juergen Thumann, the president of Germany’s Federation of Industry (BDI.) “An investment program of about 200 billion Euro, a stable economy and a steady hand on the nation’s finances, along with recent positive reports from rating agencies would help German investment in Brazil to increase,” said Thumann on opening the conference, held in the west German city of Cologne.
Thumann told the 500 Brazilian and German business leaders attending the conference that Brazil needed investment in its transport and energy infrastructure. The trade volume between the two nations has more than doubled over the last decade with German exports to Brazil racing ahead by 33 percent last year. German companies’ activities in Brazil at present represent more than eight percent of the Latin American country’s gross domestic product. The result is that Brazil is Germany’s most important trading and investment partner in Latin America.