Asha production is ramping up in China and the Manaus factory of Brazil right now.

FORBES: Are Investors Underestimating Nokia's Asha Range?

"There, our electronic machines first leave Manaus by plane, " said Pedro Batista, TSE Director for the Amazon.

CNN: STORY HIGHLIGHTS

Brazil will likewise profit since Ecuador and Brazil signed an agreement building the Manta-Manaus link by rail.

CENTERFORSECURITYPOLICY: Ecuador's Correa until 2017?

Clinton was speaking at the World Sustainability Forum in Manaus, the largest city in the Brazilian rainforest state of Amazonas.

FORBES: Ex-Pres Clinton Criticizes Hydroelectricity in Amazon

Factory bosses in Manaus privately complain that benefits from tax breaks are largely offset by the suffocating effects of Suframa's huge bureaucracy.

ECONOMIST: Brazil��s industrial policy

With a few exceptions, such as Honda's giant Manaus plant, which makes motorbikes from scratch, the Zona Franca has failed to get much beyond serving as an assembly line.

ECONOMIST: Brazil��s industrial policy

In Manaus, local politicians keen to keep the current regime argue that the presence of the factories has given people seeking to make a living an alternative to chopping down the rainforest.

ECONOMIST: Brazil��s industrial policy

Concern is also growing over the possibility that the flooding could spread further inland to cities like Manaus, as the waters of Rio Negro, which feeds the Amazon, have been rising rapidly in recent days.

BBC: Brazil flood victims return home

The meeting included also an itinerant exhibition, promoted in Brazil by UNESCO and Embassy of France, on the International Year of Biodiversity between 21st and 23rd October at Nilton Lins School in Manaus.

UNESCO: OFFICE IN BRASILIA