BARREIRAS, Brazil (Reuters) - No signs identify a barren field in northeastern Brazil that was meant to be the center of one of China's most ambitious agricultural forays into South America.
In 2011, Chongqing Grain Group Corp announced plans to build a soy crushing plant, railways and a giant inland storage and transportation hub to export goods back to China. The total price tag: $2 billion.
Yet today, the company has only managed to bulldoze a 100-hectare area on which the crushing plant might one day stand. Even that project is on hold, though, and shrubs are starting to grow back on the cleared terrain.
The stalled plans are an example of the difficulties facing once-promising Chinese investments here. Brazil's notorious bureaucracy, its slowing economy and a deep-seated mistrust of China's hunger for land and commodities all appear to explain why the field is still empty.