ISTANBUL

China on Thursday sought enhanced alignment between Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) and Brazil’s reindustrialization strategy.

Beijing is “willing to take the 50th anniversary of the establishment of diplomatic ties as an opportunity” to boost such alignment, said Mao Ning, spokeswoman of the Foreign Ministry.

China and Brazil established diplomatic ties in 1974.

The comments follow President Lula da Silva’s statement that his government will have to assess the benefits of the BRI for Brazil.

“As China wants to discuss this Silk Road (now reframed as BRI), we will have to prepare a proposal to assess ‘What do we gain? What’s in it for Brazil if we participate in this thing?’,” Lula told an event last week.

This was the first time that Brazil’s top leadership had openly talked about embracing the multi-billion-dollar Beijing-funded global infrastructure development program.

Brazil is one of only three Latin American nations not taking part in the BRI.

Colombia and Paraguay are two others, with Asuncion having no formal diplomatic relations with Beijing.

It is one of the only 12 diplomatic allies of Taiwan, which China considers its own “breakaway province.”

Brazil’s apparent interest in the BRI gathers heat after the South American nation’s Vice President Geraldo Alckmin paid a five-day trip to China last month.

Cooperation under the BRI was likely discussed during the trip, when he also met Chinese leader Xi Jinping.

Alckmin was accompanied by a delegation of Brazilian business people.

Ahead of his trip, the Brazilian ruling party’s parliament floor leader, Jose Guimaraes, had indicated that during the visit, Alckmin would “finalize” the inclusion of Brazil into the BRI.

However, there was no such official indication after Alckmin concluded his trip. In the past, Beijing has several times invited Brasilia to join the BRI.

China has been Brazil's largest trade partner since 2009 and the annual trade volume between the two distant nations has exceeded $157 billion.