Juiz de Fora (People's Daily) - In early June, the winter sun in the Southern Hemisphere shone down on Juiz de Fora, a city nestled among the mountains of Brazil's Minas Gerais state in the southeast. Once dubbed the "Manchester of Brazil" for its historic railway, textile and manufacturing sectors, this inland city recently hosted a high-profile forum centered entirely on China.
Margarida Salomão, Mayor of Juiz de Fora, Brazil. (Photo: Chen Yufan)
"When people discussed Brazil-China cooperation in the past, they immediately thought of ports and big cities. Today, we want China to discover Brazil beyond its major coastal cities and better understand the development potential of our inland regions," said Margarida Salomão, Mayor of Juiz de Fora, in an exclusive interview with People's Daily.
Held during the city's 176th anniversary celebrations, the "Brazil-China New Era Cooperation Forum" brought together more than 300 representatives from government, business, academia and cultural institutions across both nations.
"The forum aims to connect Juiz de Fora with the emerging opportunities of China's economic growth, while allowing Chinese companies, universities and institutions to better understand Brazil's interior," Salomão explained.
Situated at the intersection of the Rio de Janeiro, São Paulo and Belo Horizonte metropolitan areas, Juiz de Fora serves as a vital industrial and logistics hub in southeastern Brazil. According to Salomão, the city has evolved into a key regional development anchor thanks to its robust educational resources, technological innovation capacity and regional influence. Like many inland Brazilian cities, it is currently navigating a critical phase of economic transformation.
"We hope to leverage Brazil-China cooperation to strengthen our city's position in regional production chains, creating new employment and innovation opportunities for our youth."
When asked which topic commanded the most attention at the forum, Salomão answered without hesitation: "Logistics." In her view, while logistics serves as the essential baseline infrastructure for bilateral trade, the real goal is extending that supply chain capacity seamlessly from coastal ports deep into the interior.
"In recent years, Chinese companies, including COSCO Shipping, have steadily enhanced the logistics corridors between Brazil and China. By promoting better integration between ports, maritime transport and inland transport networks, they are providing crucial support for economic and trade cooperation between our two countries," Salomão said. "For cities like Juiz de Fora, establishing an efficient connection with the Port of Rio de Janeiro allows us to develop multimodal transport corridors, which drastically reduce logistics costs and stimulate localized manufacturing hubs."
Salomão also highlighted the impact of Chinese firm Anjun Logistics, which has invested more than 750 million reais in Brazil, employing over 2,200 local workers and establishing a nationwide logistics network. "Last year, they even helped facilitate a letter of intent to establish sister-city relations between Juiz de Fora and Yueyang, in China's Hunan Province, bringing two inland cities together through the power of logistics."
In October last year, Salomão personally led a delegation to visit Yueyang, where China's economic dynamism, modern infrastructure and urban governance left a lasting impression. "Yueyang is a remarkably vibrant city," she recalled. "We saw firsthand the speed of China's development and the strides Chinese cities have made in industrial planning, infrastructure and public services."
She expressed a strong desire to deepen ties with Chinese cities in sectors such as hydropower, healthcare, foreign trade, education and technological innovation to promote mutual benefits.
According to Salomão, these high expectations are shared well beyond Juiz de Fora. The forum also brought together mayors from other inland municipalities, including Viçosa and Leopoldina in Minas Gerais, and Barra do Piraí in Rio de Janeiro state. Every leader demonstrated a keen interest in logistics connectivity, industrial upgrading, technological innovation and talent development, all aimed at sparking local growth through targeted cooperation with China.
As a former rector of the Federal University of Juiz de Fora, Salomão commands a profound background in academia. Unsurprisingly, when the conversation turns to China, education and innovation remain closest to her heart.
"What I admire most about China is the sweeping transformations achieved in education, alongside its rapid progress in urban construction, technological innovation and the scaling of higher education," Salomão noted, pointing to educational cooperation as one of the most fertile areas for bilateral growth. "Learning Chinese is a priority for us. We hope that more young people from ordinary working-class families can gain access to Chinese language education, unlocking wider opportunities through international exchanges."
Concluding the interview, Salomão returned to her central theme: the interior.
"When cooperation extends from the coast to the interior, from the ports to the farms, more Brazilian cities and communities will be able to share the opportunities brought by international trade and industrial upgrading," Salomão said. "We are already seeing a profound evolution in Brazil-China relations. It is expanding from traditional commodity trade into education, science, technology, logistics and innovation. The inland cities once overlooked on the map, alongside young Brazilians eager to connect with their Chinese peers, are stepping up as the new driving participants in Brazil-China relations."