São Paulo – The expansion of business relations between the Brazilian state of Santa Catarina and the Arab countries will be the goal of Council of Arab Ambassadors visit to the capital of Santa Catarina, Florianópolis, beginning this Monday (28th). By Wednesday (30th), the diplomats will meet with governor Raimundo Colombo and mayor Cesar Souza Júnior, both members of the same political party, PSD. They will also be welcomed to a luncheon at the Federation of Industries of the State of Santa Catarina (Fiesc). Their visit is organized via a partnership of the Council of Ambassadors and the Arab Brazilian Chamber of Commerce.
According to the dean of the Arab ambassadors in Brasília, the Palestinian Ibrahim Alzeben, the visits the ambassadors make regularly to the Brazilian states is a way to find business and exchange opportunities. “In Santa Catarina there are important economic spheres for exchange, such as tourism, agriculture, textiles and meats, both beef and poultry”, he said.
The Arab Chamber’s CEO, Michel Alaby, claimed that other missions have taken place in the past and there is a solid relation between the state and the Arab countries. “This will be the third visit to Santa Catarina; the others happened in 2005 and 2008. Besides that, Fiesc and the Arab Chamber have already had eight technical and trade visits, to the United Arab Emirates between 2005 and 2012, during the Big 5 fair (for the construction sector, held in Dubai). We want to strengthen the relations between the Arab countries and the state and present the potential for foreign trade, both to export and to import”, he said.
According to data by the Ministry of Development, Industry and Foreign Trade (MDIC), Santa Catarina exported US$ 607 million to the Arab countries in 2013. From this amount, US$ 448 million were in beef, US$ 33 million in machinery and equipment, US$ 29 million in fisheries, US$ 27 million in wood and US$ 21 million in tobacco.
The imports amounted to US$ 148.9 million. Most of the imports were in plastic (US$ 63.7 million), fertilizers (US$ 37.1 million), fisheries (US$ 25.7 million) and cotton (US$ 6.4 million). The main business partners were Saudi Arabia, United Arab Emirates and Egypt. The state did business with 270 companies of the Middle East and North Africa.
On Tuesday (29th), the ambassadors will be welcomed by the dean of the Federal University of Santa Catarina (UFSC), Roselane Neckel. In the meeting, the Palestinian ambassador will deliver a lecture. On the trip, the diplomats will also meet with representatives of import and export companies and tour operators. A visit to the Globo network’s television station in Santa Catarina (RBS) is also planned.
Besides Alzeben, ambassadors from Sudan, Algeria, Oman, Qatar, Egypt, Morocco, Tunisia, Kuwait and Jordan and the chargés d’affaires for Saudi Arabia and Mauritania will also come. Four ambassadresses will participate in the visit to Santa Catarina.
The Arab Chamber will be represented by the president Marcelo Sallum and by Alaby. The head of the Middle East Department of the Brazilian Ministry of External Relations (Itamaraty), ambassador Carlos Ceglia, will also be accompanying the visit. In 2013, the ambassadors visited Salvador, Goiânia and Porto Alegre.
*Translated by Rodrigo Mendonça
