From the Newsroom*
São Paulo – The Brazilian Ministry of Agriculture informed today (19) that Brazil is set to start exporting to Tunisia, already in the first quarter of the year, live cattle, beef, fisheries products, hatching eggs and one day old chicks. The agreement that allowed for the sales of these products, according the ministry, was settled this week by representatives of the Tunisian and Brazilian governments.
The agreement is one more result of the mission to Brazil by the Tunisian minister of Foreign Affairs, Abdelwahab Abdallah. On Monday he had a meeting with the Brazilian minister of Agriculture, Roberto Rodrigues, in Brasilia.
According to the ministry, however, there will be restrictions for beef exports from the states of Mato Grosso do Sul, in the Midwestern region of Brazil, Paraná and São Paulo, in the Southeast, due to the points of foot and mouth disease that were identified in Mato Grosso do Sul last year.
The understandings between the two governments allowed Brazil to exploit a new share of the Tunisian market, as the only animal origin products that were being exported in significant quantities up to last year were dairy products, leather, frozen fish and giblets. During the business roundtables between Tunisian and Brazilian entrepreneurs, carried out yesterday at the Arab Brazilian Chamber of Commerce, it became clear that foodstuff are Brazilian goods that hold greatest interest for Tunisian importers.
The main items in the exports basket from Brazil to Tunisia are agricultural products of vegetal origin, such as sugar, soy oil and coffee, followed by industrial products, such iron and steel laminates and trucks.
*Translated by Silvia Lindsey
