A total of 23 Spanish companies on Tuesday in Porto Alegre, the capital of Brazil's Rio Grande do Sul state, began a business conference with the aim of identifying investment opportunities and finding new local business partners with whom to pursue their projects.

In addition to exploring the opportunities that both countries offer, the Spain-Brazil Business Encounter, organized by Spain's ICEX export and investment agency, is designed to be a forum at which the firms can make strategic alliances in third countries, organizers said.

"We believe more and more that the economic relationship is bilateral. We even want to do joint (Brazil-Spain) business in third countries," Fernando Salazar Palma, the trade advisor for Spain's Embassy in Brasilia, told Efe.

The meeting began on Tuesday with a seminar at which the economic and legal context of the South American giant was detailed.

On Wednesday, when the event will be formally inaugurated, there will be workshops on renewable energy, investment opportunities and Spain's position as a gateway to Europe for Brazilian companies.

The Brazilian state, which borders on Argentina and Uruguay, is the country's fifth largest, in terms of population, has per capita earnings of more than $14,000 and had the fourth largest GDP in absolute terms in Brazil, after the states of Sao Paulo, Rio de Janeiro and Minas Gerais.

The event will conclude on Thursday with a business round table at which 11 of the 23 participating firms will conduct individual interviews with representatives of Brazilian companies.

According to Salazar, between 80 and 100 meetings are scheduled. EFE