São Paulo – The Arab Brazilian Chamber of Commerce is planning to host a Brazil-Syria Forum in May next year, concurrently with the Apas Show, a supermarket industry expo. Once again, the Chamber will have a pavilion at the show, which will feature Syrian exhibitors. The decision was made public in the wake of a trip to Damascus from September 15 to 17 by Chamber president Rubens Hannun and his advisor Tamer Mansour.
According to Mansour, during a meeting, the Syrian deputy minister of Economy and Foreign Trade Rania Khodr Ahmad (pictured above) lauded Brazil’s positions regarding her country and said now is the time to advance Brazilian-Syrian economic relations. “We discussed Syria’s participation in the 2019 Apas Show, in the Arab Chamber pavilion, and we decided to encourage Syrian enterprises to join in massive numbers. In the sidelines, we will hold the Brazil-Syria Forum, with Syrian and Brazilian businesspersons alike,” the advisor revealed.
The deputy minister also called on the Chamber for assistance in resuming talks for a Mercosur-Syria free trade agreement. Mansour said the meeting also covered implementation of online certification for the export of goods from Brazil to Syria, and the return of the Arab Brazilian Chamber of Commerce to the Damascus International Fair in 2019, with a delegation of Brazilian executives.
“There are many opportunities in place for Brazilian companies to rekindle their partnerships with public and private sector players in Syria’s civil construction and infrastructure sectors,” Mansour concluded.
Hannun and Mansour also met with Damascus Chamber of Commerce and General Federation of Trade Unions president Mohammad Ghassan al-Qalla. They went over the possibility of increasing the number of business missions between Brazil and Syria, of increasing promotion of goods from Syria in Brazil – especially food items – and the need to stop working with middleman countries in exports. If a company is unable to ship direct to Syria, it will ship to a nearby country, and this country will reap the benefits,” explained Mansour.
The Arab Chamber’s schedule in Syria was set up by the organization’s director Sami Roumieh.
Translated by Gabriel Pomerancblum
