Dubai – Brazil has chosen the Arab market as the main focus for the return to dairy exports, as the result of an agreement signed by the Brazilian Export and Investment Promotion Agency (Apex), the Organization of Brazilian Cooperatives (OCB) and the Ministry for Agrarian Development (MDA).
Of the eight countries chosen as targets for promotion, five are Arab: Algeria, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Egypt and Iraq. “The trade intelligence work developed by Apex coincided with company interest,” said the OCB analyst and project manager, Gustavo Beduschi, who visited the Gulfood, a fair in the food sector that began on Monday (25) in Dubai, in the Emirates. “They are truly interesting markets,” he said.
The demand for dairy is large in the region and the matter returns from time to time when talking to local businessmen about Brazilian exports of food and beverages, as was the case with a businessman from Gaza, Palestine, who said he was interested in importing products in the sector, while visiting the stand the Arab Brazilian Chamber of Commerce has at the fair, in partnership with the Brazilian Export and Investment Promotion Agency (Apex). Fair director Mark Napier himself asked ANBA about the production of dairy in Brazil.
Gulfood and other events in the Middle East have already counted on strong presence of Brazilian dairy producers in the past, but in recent years many companies have left the foreign market. A conjunction of factors caused Brazil to go from being a dairy importer to a dairy exporter over the last decade, due to problems in some suppliers, great demand and high prices.
However, with the international financial crisis and the appreciation of the Brazilian real as against the dollar, the profitability of exporter companies dropped and Brazilian milk became too expensive for a depressed market. To have an idea, Brazil exported the equivalent to US$ 120 million in dairy last year, according to Beduschi, but in 2008, the year in which the crisis erupted, foreign sales had totalled US$ 541 million.
“The crisis stunted the market,” said the executive. Now we need to see what to do to keep the international market, which is interesting to us. We cannot live only the moments,” he added.
In this respect, the project plans to face two fronts. The first is promotion, with events, missions and participation in fairs, like the Gulfood in 2014. The other is in production, and that is where the partnership with the Agrarian Development Ministry comes in. Beduschi recalls that dairy is supplied mainly by small producers. The idea is to provide means for them to gain productivity and increase product quality.
“Industry depends on producers for milk supply. With better producers, the revenues of the industry will also grow and costs will drop both on the local and on the foreign market,” pointed out the manager.
The dairy project budget is R$ 2 million for investment over the next two years. Beduschi said that the first action will be to take a group of importers to Brazil in July. He added that 11 companies are part of the project, but that the number should rise.
The objective is to make foreign sales sustainable. “The dairy sector, if it has sufficient structure, can remain [on the foreign market],” said the executive.
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But not all companies abandoned the foreign market. This is the case with Mococa, from São Paulo, which is exhibiting at the Gulfood. “We never left, our exports have only grown since then,” said the company foreign trade director, Sandro da Conceição, referring to the moment in which his brand decided to invest in foreign sales, right in 2008. “In foreign trade, you cannot say ‘I am out’. By doing that, you repeat history and bring a bad name to Brazil,” he added.
According to him, the difference with Mococa is that it does not consider exports something casual, conjectural, but something strategic to its business. “We still have some space in some categories,” he said. The company sells mostly condensed milk on the foreign market. “Our model is focussed on long-term relations with the market, we develop great work to keep it,” he said.
Contact
Gustavo Beduschi
Tel.: (+55 61) 3217-2131
E-mail: gustavo.besduschi@ocb.coop.br
Site: www.brasilcooperativo.coop.br
*Translated by Mark Ament
