Prime Minister Matti Vanhanen met on Thursday with Brazilian President Luis Inacio Lula da Silva in the capital Brasilia. Environmental and climate issues dominated the agenda.
The Finnish premier said that Brazilian leaders underscored their commitment to sustainable bioenergy production without threatening food production, and said that Amazon rainforest destruction has been exaggerated.
However Lula da Silva was recently forced to admit that deforestation increased in the Amazon last year after three years of success against the loggers, miners and cattle herders.
Vanhanen and a large Finnish business delegation visited a Dedini biofuel plant that uses sugarcane, as well as a eucalyptus plantation in Sao Paolo province.
On Friday Vanhanen is in Peru for an EU-Latin American summit. Nearly 60 leaders and top officials from European, Latin American and Caribbean countries gathering for their fifth summit in a decade plan to tackle climate change, high food prices and poverty.
Vanhanen is to return home on Saturday.
