São Paulo – Exports of Brazilian sweets to the Middle East, in the accumulated result from January to July, grew 13% over the same period last year. Revenues with sales reached US$ 6.1 million, as against US$ 5.4 million in the first seven months of 2010. The figures were supplied by the Brazilian Cocoa and Confectionery Manufacturers Association (Abicab).
According to the Export vice president at Abicab, Solange Isidoro, the growth reflects sector investment in trade promotion in the Arab nations. “We started focussing more in the region. We have been participating in the Gulfood and this has resulted in good business to Abicab partners,” she said. Gulfood is the main fair in the food sector in the Middle East and takes place in Dubai, in the United Arab Emirates, every year. Over the last three years, Abicab and its associates have been present in the event.
The main buyer of Brazilian sweets in the Middle East was Yemen, with US$ 1.7 million in imports, followed by Lebanon, with US$ 987,000, Saudi Arabia (US$ 620,000) and the Emirates (US$ 606,000). “Yemen is a great consumer of the sweets we call ‘non-chocolate’,” explained Isidoro. “The Saudis, in turn, consume great volumes of chocolate,” she said. According to her, per capita income in the countries affects the kind of sweet most consumed in the nation. “Chocolate is naturally a more expensive product,” she explained.
In volume, total exports to the Middle East in the first seven months of this year reached 2,800 tonnes. By segment, the products most sold to the region were sweets, with US$ 3.3 million, chocolate (US$ 2.3 million) and peanuts (US$ 606,000).
From January to July this year, total Brazilian sector exports reached US$ 192.5 million, with growth of 14% as against the first seven months of 2010. According to Isidoro, the increase was boosted by sales of higher value added products, a reasoning that may also be applied to the Middle East.
“We have great competition, from Turkey. We have even started selling greater value added products in the ‘non-chocolate’ sweets sector, to compete with the Turks,” she reveals. In volume, total foreign sales reached 73,600 tonnes.
She pointed out that it is not possible to say whether the higher sector exports will be maintained until the end of the year, but adds that the Arab market is very important for Brazilian sector foreign sales. “It is an excellent market for sweet production,” she said. “In recent years, Brazilian diplomacy has opened new channels with the Arabs and, when you have a government that insists, you follow suit,” she said.
*Translated by Mark Ament
