Li, who was due to land late afternoon in the capital Brasilia, will hold talks tomorrow with President Dilma Rousseff, for whom the investment will be a major boon. Brazil's economy is battling a fifth straight year of poor growth and spiraling inflation.
Li will head for Rio tomorrow evening to see some of China's investment in the city, which Brasilia supplanted as the capital in 1960 but which will in August next year welcome South America's first ever Olympic Games.
Chinese investment in Brazil has grown exponentially over the past decade, with the Asian giant becoming Brazil's main trading partner in 2009.
Trade between China and Latin America as a whole rose some 2,550 per cent between 2000 and 2012 from barely USD 10 billion to USD 255.5 billion.
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Sino-Brazilian trade mushroomed from USD 6.5 billion in 2003 to USD 83.3 billion in 2012.
Jose Graca Lima, head of Asian affairs in the Brazilian foreign ministry, said ahead of Li's arrival that a "second generation" of Chinese investment is under way. The first involved trade in raw materials and the focus now is on heavy industry and infrastructure, he said.
One mooted project is a proposed rail link stretching some 3,500 kilometers from the key Brazilian port of Santos to the Peruvian Pacific port of Ilo.
Graca Lima said the plan would take some three to four years to realize, but he assured it is "advancing," despite some environmental groups voicing concern.
The countries are also expected to announce the delivery of 22 jetliners from Brazil's Embraer to China -- part of a larger order of 60 airplanes from the world's number three commercial aircraft developer.