Mauricio Machado says he hasn't been able to stand still since Brazil's Banco Santos opened a China Desk at its Sao Paulo headquarters last month.
As head of the desk, Machado's job is to pair up Chinese businessmen seeking to buy or sell their goods in Brazil with the growing number of Brazilians out to do the same in China.
"I have on average four meetings every day between Chinese and Brazilian businessmen," Machado says.
The rising interest is just one sign of a recent surge in trade between Latin America and China that has been driven in large part by the country's thirst for the food and raw materials it needs to import to feed its population and keep its juggernaut economy charging ahead.
China's economy grew a sizzling 9.1 percent last year and is expected to expand 8.5 percent in 2004, according to a Reuters poll last month of economists who specialise on Asia.
Although the investments to date have been relatively small, businessmen, government officials and analysts say Chinese companies are increasingly interested in opportunities to invest in raw goods like oil, iron and soybeans.
Peruvian President Alejandro Toledo even announced last year that Chinese investors were keen to grow silkworms in the Andean nation's jungles.
In what would be the biggest overseas investment by a Chinese company yet, China's top steel maker Baosteel said this month it was studying the construction of a steel plant in Brazil with local group Companhia Vale do Rio Doce the world's top iron ore miner.
Estimated to cost $2.5 billion, the project should help Baosteel lock in supply of raw materials, trim costs and possibly export more to the US market, analysts say.
"China is very interested in trying to invest in areas where they can obtain the products they need," says Charles Tang, a Chinese entrepreneur who is the president of the Brazil-China Chamber of Commerce and Industry.
China is growing so fast "it needs resources," he says.
Dependent on foreign investment to substitute a low rate of domestic savings, Latin American governments have been more than eager to court the Chinese.
Venezuela's left-wing leader, President Hugo Chavez, has made a point of strengthening his oil-rich country's links with China as part of a policy to diversify its foreign ties beyond its strained relationship with the United States.
China's ambassador to Venezuela, Ju Yijie, says he expects China to invest up to $500 million over the next few years in Venezuela. Chinese companies are already trying to produce fuel and reactivate a gold mine in Venezuela, among other projects.
Last year, Chinese state oil trader Sinochem Corp made its first investment in South America with a $100 million deal to buy a 14 percent stake in an Ecuadorean oil field.
The China National Petroleum Corp (CNPC), China's largest oil group, has also made investments in Ecuador and Peru and is looking for other opportunities in the region.
"Wherever there are auctions we will be there," CNPC's representative in Ecuador Yang Hua told Reuters in December.
But it is Brazil that has been attracting the most attention recently.
Although trade between China and Brazil has been on an upward trend since 2000, Chinese direct investment in Brazil amounted to only $17.3 million in 2003, according to a study by the Brazilian Society for the Study of Transnational Companies and Economic Globalisation (SOBEET), a private think tank.
But that is expected to increase in the coming years as a growing number of companies say they are eyeing possibilities in Brazil.
Brazilian officials said recently that the China Minmetals Group was studying a $2 billion investment and iron miner CVRD has said that the China Aluminium Co may take part in the future expansion of its Alunorte alumina refinery.
"The trend (for investment) is for growth because Chinese companies have become stronger and they are clearly going to invest in countries with economies that are complementary to China's, and Brazil fits that bill," said Antonio Correa de Lacerda, president of the SOBEET.
Some of the investments will be aimed at producing goods such as tractors and air conditioners for the Brazilian and Latin American markets. But others will underscore China's penchant for buying not only the raw materials it needs, but the means of production as well, analysts say.
"They feel that it will be less expensive, that perhaps they can maximise and bring the product to China at the lowest cost possible," said Lawrence Pih, a Shanghai-born businessman in Brazil and member of the China-Brazil Business Council.
According to Brazil's agriculture minister, Chinese companies have offered to invest in railways, ports and other infrastructure in exchange for payment in commodities like soybeans, cotton and cane-based ethanol.
The first letters of intent to proceed with such a deal could be signed in May, when Brazil's President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva will travel to China.
Even Argentina, a country investors have avoided since its economy hit rock-bottom in 2002, is being eyed by the Chinese.
Luis Bussio, head of the Argentina-China Chamber of Commerce and Industry, says Chinese companies invested about $15 million prior to the crisis but investments could increase in areas like mining, agriculture and tourism.
"If Argentina improves some issues, such as legal safeguards and economic stability, that number is expected to triple or quadruple by the end of 2006," Bussio said.
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