São Paulo – Last Friday evening (17th), the president of the Arab Brazilian Chamber of Commerce, Salim Taufic Schahin, and the secretary general, Michel Alaby, met with the Brazilian foreign minister Celso Amorim, in Brasília, to discuss means for enhancing cooperation between the organization and the Brazilian foreign office (Itamaraty), which already dates back several years and involves the development of a series of joint actions.
“We discussed a schedule for us to be able to provide better support to the actions [of Brazil] in the Middle East,” said Schahin, after the meeting. According to him, the aim is for the Arab Brazilian Chamber to have first-hand access to information on the activities that the government intends to promote in the region, and thus be able to give assistance in a more comprehensive fashion.
Amorim requested support from the organization to promote the football match between teams Corinthians and Flamengo, scheduled to take place in September, in the West Bank. The event is an initiative of the Itamaraty to strengthen friendship ties between Brazil and Palestine and to promote the country’s image abroad. The Brazilian diplomacy wants to play a more active role in peace negotiations between Palestinians and Israelis.
The trip by the two most popular football teams in Brazil follows the same formula used by the government in 2004, when the Brazilian National Team played in Haiti, a country in which the Brazilian Armed Forces are in charge of a peace mission of the United Nations (UN).
The foreign minister also highlighted the support that the Chamber already provides to government actions in the Arab world and in Brazil. The organization attends several trade fairs in partnership with the Itamaraty, the Brazilian Ministry of Development, Industry and Foreign Trade, the Ministry of Agriculture and, more recently, with the Ministry of Tourism as well.
The Arab Brazilian Chamber also operates in tandem with the government on trade missions and events, such as the business meetings held on the sidelines of two editions of the Summit of South American-Arab Countries (Aspa), in Brazil and in Qatar, and the organization of several delegations of businessmen who accompanied the president Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva and his ministers on trips to the Middle East and North Africa over the last few years. “The government is of utmost importance to the strengthening of ties with the Arab countries,” said Schahin.
In Syria
One of the events in which the Arab Brazilian Chamber participates along with the Itamaraty is the Damascus International Fair, in Syria, currently underway. Schahin will be in the Arab country this week to meet with government and private initiative representatives. “The objectives [of the trip] are to bring the Arab Brazilian Chamber closer to the Syrian government and to strengthen commercial and cultural ties between the two countries,” he stated.
According to him, Amorim requested, if possible, that Schahin re-extend the invitation made by Lula to his Syrian counterpart, Bashar Al-Assad, for him to visit Brazil. The Brazilian president travelled to the Arab country in December 2003, in the beginning of his first term in office. Syria, alongside Lebanon, is the origin of most Arabs who settled in Brazil.
The meeting was also attended by ambassadors Ruy Nogueira, the undersecretary general for Commercial Cooperation and Promotion of the Itamaraty, and Henrique Sardinha Pinto, the head of the ministry’s Commercial Promotion Department and future ambassador of Brazil to Algeria.
*Translated by Gabriel Pomerancblum