Li pledges $ 30b industrial fund for Latin America

Premier Li Keqiang addresses a business summit between China and Brazil in Brasilia, capital of the Latin American country on May 19.[Photo/english.gov.cn]

Premier Li Keqiang pledged on Tuesday to set up a $30 billion fund to finance industrial cooperation between China and Latin American countries.

The fund would be used to help upgrade local logistics, power supplies and information infrastructure, a cooperative approach that he said would advance industrialization on both sides. The fund also will be used to encourage Chinese companies to take part in the construction of logistics networks, focusing on railroads and highways in Latin America; an efficient power transmission network linking different Latin America countries; and an information technology network with cloud computing and big data technology. Li detailed the fund in an address to Chinese and Brazilian corporate leaders.

The projects will be launched according to market demand, he said, in either a public-private-partnership or a franchising pattern, to encourage input from local labor unions.

Li's pledge to invest more in transportation infrastructure, electricity and information technology comes as Brazil and other Latin American economies are feeling the pinch of a global recession and decreasing demand for commodities.

Experts said the fund could ease lending difficulties in Brazil, as a scandal involving state-run oil company Petrobras has implicated the country's largest construction and engineering firms in alleged bribes, freezing them out of credit markets and hamstringing their ability to complete infrastructure projects or start new ones that Brazil badly needs to streamline its exports of soy, iron ore and other goods.