São Paulo – Representatives of the Arab Institute of Business Managers (IACE), from Tunisia, are in Brazil to learn about corporate governance. The idea is to create an institute similar to the Brazilian Institute of Corporate Governance (IBGC). "We are very close to Egypt, the United Arab Emirates and France, but the Brazilian system is what is closer to what we want to do," stated the executive councillor of the IACE, Majdi Hassen.
The executive’s first contact with the IBGC was in 2007, when one of the volunteers and founders of the institute, Leonardo Viegas, gave a talk in Tunisia. According to Hassen, the establishment of a new institute is a long process and, in recent years, a group of IACE executives has been studying the theme. "We are here to learn about the Brazilian experience, to see how it works and to establish it in Tunisia," he said. The executive also said that over 80% of the companies in Tunisia are family businesses.
This week, the Tunisians visited Natura, a Brazilian open-capital cosmetics company, traded on the São Paulo Stock Exchange (Bovespa) and on Thursday (29) they should visit real estate enterprise Agra, which opened its capital in 2007. According to figures disclosed by the IBGC, the companies were chosen as they were examples of corporate governance. Apart form visits, the Arabs spoke to several consultants in the IBGC to know about management, sustainability and governance, among other matters.
According to Hassen, the objective is to inaugurate the new institute, to be called Arab Institute of Corporate Governance, in June this year. "In future, the idea is to share experience with the IBGC. We may also establish a partnership," he added. This is the first trip of the Tunisians to Brazil and, according to Hassen, the visits were very positive. "I greatly appreciate the way of thinking of the Brazilians. It is something unique," he said.
Yesterday, the representatives participated in the seminar promoted by the IBGC covering the pros and cons of promotion of variable income. The executive director at the institute, Heloisa Bedicks, in her opening address, thanked the Arabs for their presence and praised the work of the Tunisians. "They ware working on benchmarking here and bring very rich experience to us too," she said.
According to her, the IBGC has already received international visits from several countries, like Angola, Panama and Mozambique, among others. "The institute has a very strong international reputation," said Heloisa, who mentioned the several works already published by the institute, like the Code for Best Practices, the Corporate Governance Booklet and books, among others.
The trip of the Tunisian delegation counted on the support of the Center for International Private Enterprise (Cipe), a non-governmental organisation connected to the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, whose objective is to strengthen democracy in the world through private initiative and market reforms.
"The reality of the government of Brazil is much closer to the Tunisian, Angolan and Mozambican than to that of the United States and England, for example. To the Cipe, it is much more interesting to bring them (the Tunisians) here than to take them to the institute in London, for example," said Heloisa. According to her, there is much more empathy in showing these delegations from developing nations what the IBGC does than showing other more conservative institutes.
IBGC
Established in 1995, the institute is headquartered in São Paulo and has branches in Curitiba, in the state of Paraná, and in Porto Alegre, in the state of Rio Grande do Sul. Apart from several publications about corporate governance, the IBGC, which has over 1,200 associates, offers training courses to councillors.
*Translated by Mark Ament
