São Paulo – Brazilian Trade and Investment Promotion Agency (Apex-Brasil) incoming president Sergio Segovia (pictured above) visited the Arab Brazilian Chamber of Commerce headquarters this Friday (28), where he spoke with C-level executives about renewing the agency’s partnership with the Chamber. Segovia also told ANBA about his plans for Apex, such as creating a new strategic plan to increase efficiency.
Arab Brazilian Chamber president Rubens Hannun and CEO Tamer Mansour had met with Segovia last Wednesday (26) in Brasília. This Friday, they resumed their talks, this time featuring the Chamber’s foreign trade vice president Ruy Cury, administrative vice president Mohamad Orra Mourad and marketing and strategy director Janine Bezerra de Menezes. Apex exports manager Maria Paula Sobral Belloso and chief-of-staff cabinet manager Odilon Leite also sat in.
Segovia told ANBA that following these meetings, the Arab Chamber will submit a partnership and agreement proposal to Apex. “The Arab market is fantastic for Brazil, especially for the agribusiness sector, with the sale of meat,” he said. Segovia noted that the joint work with the Arab Brazilian Chamber has everything to be a win-win situation. “After all, we both want Brazil exporting and attracting currency,” Segovia said.
The Apex’s president said he intends to look for new niches to explore in Brazilian products promotion in the Arab market, now quite focused on agribusiness. He’s got his radar locked on the defense industry, because of its high technology. “The Arab market consumes defense products and we have very, very good companies here in São Paulo even, such as Avibras, which supplies high-quality material,” he said.
When asked about his plans for Apex-Brasil, where he took office less than two months ago, Segovia pointed out that the agency already has a defined mission statement – which includes promoting exports of goods from Brazil, helping local companies go international, and attracting foreign investment to Brazil – and it’s up to the president only to define how to achieve those goals.
Segovia wants to make these processes more efficient. He says that, by listening to staff over these first weeks in the job, he realized a change of vision is in order. “To change Apex’s 20th-century vision into a 21st-century one,” he said.
In order to put that in practice, they are drawing up a new strategic plan, whose draft will be presented to the agency’s advisory board and should be ready in November. The idea is to change processes and paradigms. “The Apex is recognized for its technical work, but with our highly skilled human resources and new tools, especially in information technology, we can increase our efficiency,” he said.
Apart from in-house personnel, input in drafting the plan is coming from clients and institutions involved in Apex’s governance, including Brazil’s Ministry of Agriculture, Livestock and Supply, Ministry of Economy, Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the National Confederation of Industry (CNI), the Brazilian Confederation of Agriculture and Livestock (CNA) and the Brazilian Micro and Small Business Support Service (Sebrae). “We will listen to these people and then put in place new processes, a new workflow, so as to increase efficiency,” said Segovia.
According to him, this won’t be a disruptive action. The goal is to work with “the old and the new,” until the entire transformation has been rolled out. Segovia expects this to take place by the time his term as president ends. The new practices will become effective fully and immediately wherever they are easier to implement, while other fields will see a more gradual process.
Sergio Segovia said that, being a Brazilian, he wishes the country to be an exporter of knowledge, but he claimed Apex will work to promote everything that gets made in Brazil. “I wouldn’t be worthy of sitting in the chair as the Apex president if I didn’t help with each legal commercial activity that creates a job and brings in a cent of a dollar to Brazil,” he told ANBA.
The incoming president expresses his desire to see Brazil add value to the commodities it exports, but in his view that doesn’t depend on the Apex. “It depends on public policies with increased funding for research, development and innovation. That breeds products that appeal to users, and those are easier to sell,” he says. According to him, this process hinges on several players and factors, like universities and the availability of funds conducive to a more sophisticated industry.
Segovia also plans to make clear that the Apex is not an agency designed to provide funding for companies to go to industry shows, and that businesses must get ready for the international market before going to those shows – and the Apex can help with that. “Before going on showcase in an exhibition, a product must have undergone a process whereby it gets market-ready, and the market needs to be understood,” he said.
Sergio Segovia took office on May 6. A Brazilian Navy rear admiral, he did foreign trade work while in charge of logistics and international purchases, according to the Apex website. He holds a postgraduate degree in Policy and Strategy from Brazil’s War College. He told ANBA he hadn’t had much contact with the Arab world before joining Apex – he had been to a fair in Doha, Qatar in 2008 –, but said he admires the Arab culture and cuisine. “I am a consumer of Arab cuisine in Brasília,” he says.
Translated by Guilherme Miranda & Gabriel Pomerancblum
