The chairmen of the Brazilian central bank, Alexandre Tombini, and the central bank of China, Zhou Xiaochuan, Sunday in Basel agreed terms for setting up a credit line in local currency worth US$30 billion, Brazilian state news agency Estado reported.

The meeting was held on the sidelines of the bi-monthly meeting of the central banks of the Bank for International Settlements (BIS) in Basel, Switzerland, and the agreement will be signed in “the next few weeks” but as yet has no set date or location.

The details of the swap agreement will be announced at the future meeting.

The decision was announced in June 2012 by Brazil’s Finance Minister, Guido Mantega, following a meeting between Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff with China’s Prime Minister, Wen Jiabao, at the Rio+20 meeting in Rio de Janeiro.

Currency swaps are credit lines in local currency agreed between two countries or institutions, which are available to both parties.

Once the agreement is signed Brazil will have access to a credit line of the equivalent of US$30 billion – around 185 billion Chinese yuan – and China will have an identical credit line denominated in Brazilian reals – around 61 billion reals. (macauhub)