Brazil Ethanol Industry Sees Japan Move in 2 Years
Beijing has pledged to clean up the city air in time for the Olympic Games in 2008 and Carvalho said a proposal "on the table" was to supply China with ethanol to help it do that. Carvalho has twice visited China, which also produces ethanol, and has been talking to authorities about possible exports.
SPAIN: May 19, 2005
SEVILLE - Brazil's ethanol industry expects to win the lion's share of Japan's opening ethanol market within two years and aims to move into China by 2008, the president of Brazil's leading sugarcane group said.
Eduardo Pereira de Carvalho, president of the Sao Paulo Cane Agroindustry Union (Unica), is going to Japan next week for talks about possible imports on a trip planned to coincide with a visit by President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva.
Carvalho, whose organisation represents most of Brazil's producers, told Reuters in an interview late on Tuesday he expected Brazil -- the world's leading producer and exporter of ethanol -- to gain the largest share of the Japanese market.
Japan is expected to need 1.8 billion litres of fuel ethanol a year after it modified its energy policy last year to let gasoline to include up to 3 percent ethanol
Mixing ethanol and gasoline makes for a more environmentally friendly form of energy than conventional fuel and in Brazil cars habitually run on 25 percent ethanol mixes.
"We will get (into the market) within 2 years time, I think we have to be patient ... But I'm optimistic in the medium and long term," Carvalho said on the sidelines of a biofuel conference in Spain.
Asked how much of the market the Brazilian industry would grab he said: "The largest proportion because there's no competing supply from any other sources."
He added however that he was trying to get U.S ethanol producers -- the second biggest world producers -- to accompany him on the trip.
After Japan, the next challenge was China, where an economic boom has boosted energy demand, and Carvalho said his goal was to be in that market by 2008.
Beijing has pledged to clean up the city air in time for the Olympic Games in 2008 and Carvalho said a proposal "on the table" was to supply China with ethanol to help it do that. Carvalho has twice visited China, which also produces ethanol, and has been talking to authorities about possible exports.
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