São Paulo – The Arab Brazilian Chamber of Commerce has proposed the creation of a business women council to facilitate business between women entrepreneurs from Brazil and the United Arab Emirates. The suggestion was first presented by the Arab Chamber’s CEO, Michel Alaby, and later reinforced by the organization’s president, Rubens Hannun (right, in the picture above), during a visit by the Acting Chairperson of the Sharjah Business Women Council, Hint Bint Majid Al Qasimi (left, in the picture), to the Arab Chamber’s headquarters, this Friday (3) in São Paulo. The idea is to have the council focus, initially, on relations with the United Arab Emirates, later expanding, in the long term, to other Arab countries.
The emirate of Sharjah is the guest of honor of the 25th São Paulo International Book Biennial, which began this Friday. Qasimi is part of the delegation and this is her first visit to Brazil. She said to be very pleased to be here and that she plans to open many doors for business between Brazilian and Emirati women. “I came to Brazil with the aim of promoting business with Brazil and foster the relations between both countries,” she said. Focusing on this, the president will hold an event on August 7, at Tangará Hotel, Panamby district, São Paulo, to boost business.
The Arab Chamber’s president, Rubens Hannun, talked about the importance of Qasimi’s visit to the organization’s headquarters. “Her presence lends the necessary strength for us to move forward with this project of the business women council, which is so important.” Qasimi said that, just as she and her delegation came to Brazil, she expects to welcome Brazilian women in Sharjah soon. “We’ve seen that here in Brazil, just as in Sharjah, women play a crucial role in the economy and we seek to encourage more women to open their own businesses.”
The Arab Chamber’s executive of International Business, Fernanda Baltazar, presented the work of the Arab Chamber in promoting trade relations between Brazil and the Arab countries, agreements, events and projects. “It was always our desire to create a business women council, within the effort of achieving the UN sustainable development goal of gender equality,” said Baltazar.
The executive invited Qasimi to define a joint agenda and consider the council’s next steps, having in mind the promotion of firms headed by women in both countries. Qasimi ended the meeting saying that she expects this to be the beginning of many future meetings and emphasized that the next meeting must be in Sharjah.
The Sharjah Business Women Council was founded in 2002 and currently has over 1,500 members, half of these from the emirate and half from other countries. The Council’s mission is to help women to develop their business projects in various sectors of the economy, streamlining processes and encouraging women to venture not only in small businesses but also in medium-size and large projects. “We help them develop business projects, we have a marketing department and organize workshops and offer guidance through many topics, so our members can start or improve their businesses,” said Qasimi to ANBA.
“We’re also with our doors open to the younger generation. Many believe that a business in only to the older and we want to change this perception, encouraging women to venture sooner and sooner; for this, we have developed an app that has all of the council’s information and activities,” she concluded. The app is called SBWC and is available for free for Android and iOS.
Translated by Sérgio Kakitani
