China and Brazil have signed an agreement to establish a sister-port relationship between the Chinese Port of Guangzhou and the Brazilian Port of Acu, one of Brazil's newest ports. The two countries will have a closer cooperation on trade and information exchanges.

The agreement was signed in May at the 2019 World Ports Conference in Guangzhou, the capital of south China's Guangdong Province.

Port of Acu is the largest port complex in Latin America, located in Sao Joao da Barra, southeastern Brazilian state of Rio de Janeiro. It has a total area of 130 square kilometers and nine terminals.

The Port of Guangzhou, Acu's new sister-port, is the world's fifth-largest port and a regional hub in southern China, handling more than 600 million tons of cargo in 2018. 

Port of Acu, which started operation in 2014, is Brazil's only 100 percent private industrial port.

The port's strategic partnerships manager, Maartje Driessens, said: "When we look at the port of Guangzhou, it has about fifty sister-ports. They are connected with Africa, with the port of Lagos in Nigeria. They are connected with ports in Indonesia, the United states, in Asia, in Europe. So, for us, being a part of this club is a real privilege because it really allows us to become a more mature port and it opens the doors to many port authorities worldwide."

Brazil is China's second-largest iron ore supplier

There is one more reason behind this cooperation: iron ore.

Brazil is China's second-largest iron ore supplier. This port has a dedicated automated terminal to export iron ore – a raw material that is key to China's industrial production.

"It is the most advanced technology to export iron ore, we control all parts of this process, from the amount of material that we receive to the quality of the product we stock," explained Luiz Francisco da Silva, Port Acu's operations manager.

The port can handle more than 26 million tons of iron ore per year. The ore comes from nearby mines through pipelines. After a drying process, it's ready to load onto giant ships that sail mostly to China, including Guangzhou, its brand-new sister-port.

But China's demand for Brazilian commodities is not the only reason for the partnership. The idea is also to share expertise and attract Chinese companies to operate within this young industrial port.

"We are quite a new port, so we have state-of-the-art infrastructure, so this guarantees a high productivity, high efficiency. So, I think it is a unique selling point of the Port of Acu. Moreover, we are already operating. We have terminals. So, basically, Chinese companies that want to export and import and produce…they have all the infrastructure they need," added Driessens.

A clear indication of Brazil's growing interest in enhancing cooperation with China, which is its top trading partner with nearly 100 billion U.S. dollars in bilateral trade last year.