São Paulo – Brazilian dairy exports to Arab countries amounted to US$ 72 million year-to-date through August, up fourfold from the same period of last year. Total foreign sales by the sector amounted to US$ 211.4 million, also up nearly fourfold in the same comparison. The data were released by the Ministry of Development, Industry and Foreign Trade (MDIC).
“The year has been exceptionally good for the dairy sector, as countries are beginning to leave the black cloud of recession behind and the consumption scenario is beginning to change,” said the foreign promotion and prospecting manager for dairy at the Organization of Brazilian Cooperatives (OCB), Bernhard Smid. In this regard, he asserted that emerging nations, including Arab countries, have a “very high [market] potential”. “We see [the Arab world] as a great opportunity,” he added.
Smid said that the project for promoting Brazilian dairy products abroad, a partnership between the OCB and the Brazilian Export and Investment Promotion Agency (Apex-Brasil), is about to complete its first two-year cycle, and the Arab world was the main focus. “Looking back, it is clear that there was a very high unmet demand for the products in the region,” he pointed out.
In this period, the two organizations invited importers from the region to come to Brazil, organized a mission to Algeria and participated in Gulfood, a food fair held yearly in Dubai, United Arab Emirates, where the institutional brand B-Dairy was launched.
The project organizers want to hold another matchmaking event for Brazilian exporters and foreign purchasers later this year, and return to Gulfood in 2015. Ten private companies are involved in the initiative; five of those are cooperatives.
Algeria is the leading Arab market and the second worldwide, only behind Venezuela. Brazilian dairy exports there amounted to US$ 39 million in January through August, as against zero in the same period last year. “Algeria is a different market, they [practically] do not have cattle, so they import powdered milk to reconstitute and produce dairy locally,” said Smid.
Products vary according to destination. The main items sent to Algeria are powdered milk and buttermilk; Saudi Arabia receives condensed milk, Egypt, butter and powdered milk, and the United Arab Emirates, cream and condensed milk.
Saudi Arabia is Brazil’s second leading Arab market among the Arabs and the fourth worldwide; Egypt comes right after in both rankings, the Emirates are fourth among the Arabs and seventh worldwide. This year, Brazil has also exported dairy to Bahrain, Kuwait, Qatar, Tunisia, Oman, Yemen, Libya and Jordan.
*Translated by Rodrigo Mendonça
