Brazil’s Lula Hosts Modi in Bid to Turn India Into a Major Trade Partner

Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva wants to deepen trade ties with India, the world’s most populous nation. The question as he hosts Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi in Brasilia on Tuesday is how to go about it.

Despite both nations being members of the BRICS grouping of emerging-market economies and natural allies in the fields of poverty reduction and biofuel production, India ranks well down the list of Brazil’s trading partners. Total commerce is dwarfed by that with China, the US, neighboring Argentina and faraway Germany.