São Paulo – The Brazilian Ministry of Agriculture, Livestock and Supply (Mapa) has reported that Brazil and Morocco are planning to create an advisory committee to facilitate agricultural trade. “We will decide which Moroccan products can be sold to us and which ones we can export to them,” said minister Blairo Maggi via a statement this Wednesday (16) in Marrakech, Morocco, where COP 22, the United Nations climate conference, is taking place.
Brazil wants to exports meats, dairy, soy and maize to the Arab country, according to Mapa. Maggi met with the Moroccan Agriculture minister, Aziz Akhannouch. In the meeting, the CEO of the Arab Brazilian Chamber of Commerce, Michel Alaby, who is part of the Brazilian delegation, pointed out that Brazilian beef is taxed 200% in importing fees on entering Morocco, with poultry also incurring in 100%, while the same products from the European Union have been paying only 20%. Morocco has an association agreement with the EU.
Currently, the main agricultural products exported by Brazil to Morocco are sugar and maize. On the other hand, Morocco sell to Brazil mainly fertilizers and fish products.
Mapa has also said that Brazil can cooperate with Morocco in the field of agricultural research. “We have a very strong research structure in Brazil. We’re world leaders in tropical agriculture and many things to share with Morocco”, said the minister via the statement.
Follow-up
Also on Wednesday, in a meeting held by the General Confederation of Moroccan Enterprises (CGEM), a working committee of the private sector was created to follow closely the implementation of the agreement on climate change, the Paris Agreement, which just went into effect and which implementation is COP 22’s main topic.
This meeting was attended by representatives of business associations from 34 countries that have signed the Marrakech Declaration in which they support the implementation of the Paris Agreement, as ANBA reported on Wednesday. Alaby is one of the signatories.
*Translated by Sérgio Kakitani