BRASILIA, May 22 (Xinhua) -- Heads of electronics giants IBM, Texas Instruments, AMD, Motorola, Samsung and Intel will meet here Friday as part of Brazil's efforts in recent years to fill its technical gap.

    The convening, sponsored by the Brazilian government and an American company leading the field of integrated circuits, is aimed at prompting those companies to invest in Brazil.

    Brazilian President Lula da Silva will also host all the executives in the Presidential Palace at the closing day next Wednesday, a move meant that Brazil attaches importance to the development of electronic technology.

    Brazilian Science and Technology Minister Sergio Rezende considered growing demand in the domestic market as the principal reason for the government to seek financial partners.

    Economic data showed that in 2007, Brazil imported electronic goods worth more than 10 billion U.S. dollars, 6.3 billion dollars of which flowed toward computer components.

    As Brazil's import is growing constantly, it attempts to "follow the trend" and to produce integrated circuits domestically, Rezende said.

    The minister said in his opinion, a country, which has a population of more than 200 million, should have developed science and technology in a reasonable amount.

    In the 1990s, Brazil suffered a hard blow when Intel decided to establish its headquarters to produce micro processors in Costa Rica rather than Brazil, which led to lack of a valuable amount of investment.

    However, the Brazilian microelectronic industry was finally trying to win the domestic market after a two-decade late start.

    The joint efforts of the private sector, the government and universities throughout Brazil are contributing to changing the history of the industry in Brazil.

    "It is unlikely to find a company worth 1 billion dollars in Brazil some years ago. Today that has changed. There are many such investments throughout Brazil," Rezende said.

    "But you can't simply change history overnight. Brazil needs know-how and political policies to promote development of electronic technology. In order to develop integrated circuits, you need to have creativity and know-how. Brazil has both and now a higher demand for the product," he added.

    During the last five years, the Brazilian government has taken a series of measures to train technicians, provide fiscal incentives and attract foreign direct investment.

    In addition, the government has also provided incentives for engineers in Brazil, trying to meet the market demand on electronic technology.

    There are only some 400 specialists in the country at present. Brazil plans to raise that number to more than 1,500 by 2010.

    American company Cadence Design Systems has signed a contract with Brazil, which would allow the latter to use the technology developed by Cadence Design Systems to produce integrated circuits.

    Rezende is quite optimistic about Brazil's potential in the area of microelectronics. He said that Brazil is in the first stage of development of integrated circuits, and with financial support, electronic technology can take off.