São Paulo – Executives from the Arab Brazilian Chamber of Commerce met on Sunday (28) with officials from the Saudi Food and Drug Authority (SFDA) to discuss implementing an online document certification process. The move is designed to reduce paperwork requirements and enable quicker processing of goods before they are cleared for shipping to the Arab country. The Arab Brazilian Chamber is already implementing the process in Egypt.
Presently, exporters are required to submit product documentation to the Arab Chamber’s brick-and-mortar offices, after which the latter issues a certificate attesting that said product is originally from Brazil. Then the document is forwarded to the importing country’s embassy in Brazil, which legalizes it before finally returning the papers to the exporter. The entire process takes 15 days on average. Going online cuts costs with couriers and document transportation, and ultimately reduces clearance times as well.
According to Arab Chamber CEO Michel Alaby, the proposal to the Saudis will “move forward” in coming months. “We are already implementing it in Egypt, and now we wish to do it in Saudi Arabia. We are sending documentation first, and then technicians, in order for the system to be adopted,” Alaby told ANBA this Monday (29).
On the Brazilian side, the meeting was also attended by the Arab Chamber’s Government Relations manager Tamer Mansour, by the president of the Federation of Muslim Associations in Brazil (Fambras), Mohamed Zogbi, and the CEO of the Brazilian Beef Exporters Association (Abiec), Fernando Sampaio.
The Saudi delegation comprised SFDA’s International Cooperation Department director Abdulrahman Abdullah Alghurarir, executive director of Risk Assessment Ibraheem Al-Sheddy, and three veterinarians.
At another meeting, held this Monday (29) during a barbecue offered by Abiec at the Embassy of Brazil in Riyadh, Alaby convened with the assistant CEO for Saudi customs affairs, Suleiman Altuwajiri. He called on the Arab Chamber to submit a document containing the online certification system proposal to the Saudi embassy in Brasília, the Brazilian federal capital. The embassy, in turn, will convey the proposal to the Saudi customs. In the first week of April, a team from the Arab Chamber will meet with SFDA staff to conduct online certification integration tests.
Beef promotion
At both meetings, Alaby and the Saudis also discussed the resumption of beef exports from Brazil to Saudi Arabia. At the meeting with SFDA professionals on Sunday, an agreement was reached for sales of offal, canned beef and boned beef to resume being exported from Brazil as well. Saudi Arabia has notified the Brazilian embassy in Riyadh about the resumption of purchases, and now the embassy will report the decision to the Ministry of Agriculture.
In November of last year, Saudi Arabia lifted its ban on Brazilian beef imports, which had been in effect since November 2012. The ban was put in place because in that year, the Brazilian government reported that a cow in the state of Paraná carried Spongiform Bovine Encephalopathy (BSE), aka mad cow disease, had died in 2010, without developing disease. Several countries embargoed imports from Brazil, but most started buying again after some time.
The barbecue offered by Abiec this Monday at the Brazilian embassy in Saudi Arabia was attended by approximately 150 people. The action was intended to advertise Brazilian beef in the country and to celebrate the resumption of export. Alaby said the first Saudi-bound ship carrying beef from Brazil is slated to arrive in early March.
*Translated by Gabriel Pomerancblum