BRASILIA (Reuters) – Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro and Chinese President Xi Jinping on Wednesday praised strong bilateral relations between their countries and signaled a desire to expand two-way trade in a brief public ceremony in Brasilia.

Their comments underscored how far diplomatic relations have come since Bolsonaro’s repeated bashing of China on the campaign trail last year, which sparked concerns that he could disrupt one of the world’s biggest trading partnerships.

“We want to more than expand, we want to diversify our trade relationship,” Bolsonaro said.

China and Brazil announced a list of agreements including an accord to allow the transfer of convicted prisoners between the two countries to serve their sentences, protocols to allow an expansion of the fruit trade and broad memorandums of understanding to cooperate on transportation, investment and the service sector.

Leaders of major developing nations known as BRICS – Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa – are meeting in Brasilia on Wednesday and Thursday but little in the way of major policy announcements is expected from the sessions.