São Paulo – The business roundtables promoted by the Arab Brazilian Chamber of Commerce at Nova Equipotel, a fair in the hotel sector in São Paulo, generated positive contacts for the Arab buyers who participated. "I thought the contacts I made were excellent. I am certainly going to close deals with Brazil," said Rana Khoury, the manager of the hotel and restaurant supply division at company Med.I.C.A, from Jordan.
Another importer that was pleased was the projects manager at Baal, from Lebanon, Hasmig Krikorian. "I am very interested in four companies. They supply just what I was looking for," she said, adding that she is seeking products and decoration objects. According to her, the companies in the Brazilian High-End Furniture Manufacturers Association (Abimad) were the ones that most interested her.
One of the Brazilian companies successful with the Arab importers was Kos Acrílicos, from São Paulo. Both Rana and the Egyptian Tarek Amin, from Taco, asked for samples of products and praised the quality of the items. "I loved the quality of the products," said the manager of the Jordanian company. According to her, the hotels prefer to work with acrylic utensils for use beside the swimming pool, for example.
Kos does not yet export to the Arab market, but is already present in South America, the Caribbean and Europe. According to the company owner, Evandro Lobo, several Arab representatives have already sought the company. "They showed great interest," he said, adding that he produces cups, plates, bowls, glasses and cutlery in coloured acrylic.
According to Egyptian businessman Amim, the second day of the roundtables was much better than the first, and it may generate more contacts with companies of interest, producers of porcelain, glass, ceramics and acrylic. One of them was Porto Brasil, of ceramics. "This was our first contact with the Arab market and we were very pleased with the meetings," stated the representative of the commercial department at the company, André de Carvalho. According to him, the dinner sets produced by Porto Brasil are daring and have differentiated design, which pleased the Arabs.
In the area of food, Joyel Sebastian, of Shura Trading, from Abu Dhabi, in the United Arab Emirates, greatly appreciated two products, the tinned ready-to-drink banana nectar and the pineapple-scented water. "I found them very different and they are novelties in the Arab market," he said. Sebastian said that he was also interested in the powdered chocolate, jams and concentrated cashew juice.
Over the two days of the events there were over 70 meetings between Arab importers and Brazilian suppliers. Equipotel, which started on Monday, ends today at the Anhembi Exhibition Pavilion.
*Translated by Mark Ament
