From May 21 to 31, 2013, President Tan Xiangyong led a delegation to have visited some universities in Brazil and Canada. He met with management and professors in the University of British Columbia Institute of Technology (BCIT) in Vancouver, Canada and Pontificia Universidade Catolica do Rio DE Janeiro (PUC - Rio) in Brazil.

    President Tan paid a special visit to Universidade Federal do Rio Grande do Sul in Brazil (UFRGS). The school boasts of 120 years' history, is famous in Brazil for her research, for her alumnus including current Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff and other two presidents. Professor Carlos Alexandre Netto, President of UFRGS extended his warm welcome to President Tan Xiangyong and his delegates and was delighted to establish partnership with BTBU and to carry out academic exchange and cooperation.

    Professor Tan said,  both China and Brazil are BRIC countries, the cooperation in higher education is of great significance, cooperation between BTBU and UFRGS is of strategic significance in this regard, UFRGS will be the first partner of BTBU in Latin America, the two universities can have such cooperation as  student exchange, teacher exchange, joint research etc.. During the meeting, professors and deans and department heads in UFRGS expressed their wishes to cooperate with BTBU. The two presidents shared broad consensus on collaboration, and signed a Letter of Intent for Cooperation.

    UFRGS attached great importance to the visit of President Tan and his delegation, a strong team from UFRGS participated in the meeting. Other UFRGS participants included: professor, senior vice President of Rui Vicente Oppermann; professor, vice President in charge of graduate education, Vladimir Pinheiro do Nascimento; professor, director of International Affairs Ms. Liane Hentschke; professor, dean of the School of Agriculture Economy Pedro Selbach; professor, dean of the School of Economics, Helio Henkin;  professor, dean of the School of Management, Ms. Marisa Rhoden; professor at the School of Management, Vinicius Andrade Brei; professor, director of Food Technology Institute, Jean Philippe Revillion; professor, director of Rural Development Research Project, Sergio Schneide and professor Gu Tiejun and professor Rita Schimidt from the Confucius Institute. Former dean of the School of Management, Professor Antonio Domingos Padula acted as the earlier liaison between the two universities attended the meeting and accompanied the delegation’s visit to an agricultural cooperative Cooplantio in southern Brazil city Porto Alegre prior to the meeting.

    President Tan also visited University of Toronto, University of British Columbia, University of Victoria in Canada and University of Sao Paulo in Brazil.
 
    Professor, director of International Office, He Mingke and professor, director of the President’s Office, Wang Xiaoyi accompanied the visit.