Vince Cable, the Secretary of State for Business, is to visit the company this week as part of a bilateral series of talks with his Brazilian counterpart.
Mr Cable told The Sunday Telegraph that Embraer, whose only European operations to date are in France and Portugal, is looking at the UK.
He said his trip to the fast-growing Latin American country, where he will be accompanied by a number of big British companies looking at investing in the region, was more than about trade “in the conventional sense.”
“We have one or two Brazilian companies here [in the UK] but not many,” he added.
“I think Embraer, the aircraft company, are quite interested in [coming] here.
“They’re just a very, very big aerospace company, which is a reminder to us that the old days where it’s Boeing and EADS and a handful of other Western companies is coming to an end. There are a lot of hi-tech companies from developing countries.”
He said that rather than treating these firms as a hostile competitor, “we welcome them here and we want collaborations”.
He did not specify what type of investment Embraer was considering.
Mr Cable is taking a number of British companies with him on the trip, including Jaguar Land Rover, Mott MacDonald, Chemring, Foster and Partners, and Cobham.
The trade mission will visit the city of Recife, in northern Brazil, which is one of the host cities for the 2014 World Cup.
As part of the talks with the Brazilian trade minister, he will raise problems which British companies encounter when trying to invest in the country.
“The biggest problem is that Brazil has emerged from a very inward-looking country with quotas and tariffs, and there is a streak of protectionism in Brazilian policy,” he said.
At the same time, David Willetts, the universities and science minister, will visit Mexico and Colombia as part of an education-focused mission.
Participants on his separate but related visit will include Mark Anderson, head of strategy at educational specialist Pearson, as well as education leaders including Nigel Thrift, the vice-chancellor of the University of Warwick.
Mr Cable said trade with Brazil had shrunk to a small quantity of imports during the previous government, but pointed to figures showing sustained growth in recent years.
Mr Willetts said skills training often helped when attempting to place inward investment, noting that Colombia was trying to raise computing capabilities among its workforce.
“These places make you optimistic about the future of the world,” said Mr Willetts of Mexico and Colombia. “There are a group of non-Bric emerging powers that matter as much as the Bric, and we put a lot of effort into them.”