SAO PAULO, March 4 (Reuters) - The mayor of Brazil's center-western town of Sorriso, the world's largest soybean producer and the country's biggest corn supplier, said on Monday that he has held meetings aimed at attracting investments to boost the local grain crushing industry.
Mayor Ari Lafin, who hosted a presentation for potential investors in Sao Paulo to showcase his town's economic potential , has engaged in talks with U.S.-based Cargill and China's COFCO to lure investments to Sorriso, located in the country's top farm state of Mato Grosso.
The mayor said he was scheduled to meet Bunge representatives on Tuesday, as his administration aims to attract companies to build four new grain crushers in the town.
On the sidelines of the meeting with investors, Lafin told Reuters a delegation that included the mayor had visited China and spoke with COFCO in 2018.
“Our objective, as public managers... is to work so that these companies not only store but can transform the products here in Brazil.”
He noted that COFCO has a crushing plant in Mato Grosso's Rondonopolis. While the Chinese were receptive to his delegation's proposals, Lafin said, he noted that the company tends to prefer processing soybeans in China.
Sorriso already has a soy crushing facility operated by Caramuru, a Brazilian firm, and a separate plant, owned by FS Bioenergia, to make corn-ethanol and other byproducts.
Regarding the possibility of Cargill investing in Sorriso, Lafin said the plan “is under study.”
“Cargill has a crushing plant in Primavera do Leste and welcomed us very well.”
As for Bunge, Lafin said the idea is to convince them to set up a soy crushing unit in Sorriso too, where they store grains in a large area.
"Bunge's storage facility in Sorriso was meant to be a crushing unit," the mayor said. "But they changed the plan and took it to (the town of) Nova Mutum." (Reporting by Ana Mano; editing by Gabriel Araujo and Bill Berkrot)
