A Brazilian official has said senior figures in the Chinese and Brazilian governments are likely to hold later this year their first talks about political and economic matters since 2015, which may lead to more Sino-Brazilian trade in farm products, Reuters reports.

The news agency quotes the official, Orlando Leite Ribeiro of the Ministry of Agriculture, Livestock, and Supply as saying a meeting of the China-Brazil High-Level Coordination and Cooperation Committee will probably be held in the second half of this year.

The official said the meeting should discuss allowing more Brazilian slaughterhouses to export meat to China, and speeding-up the Chinese procedure for permitting the import of Brazilian genetically modified farm products.

China is the biggest trading partner of Brazil and the main foreign market for Brazilian soybeans and beef, Reuters says.

The annual value of Brazilian exports to China rose by 35 percent last year to US$64.2 billion.