São Paulo – The Brazilian Trade and Investment Promotion Agency (Apex-Brasil) is organizing a business mission to North Africa, which will go through Algeria and Egypt from November 21st to the 27th. In these countries, Brazilian companies will take part in matchmaking and technical visits. The mission has the support of the Arab Brazilian Chamber of Commerce and there are openings still available to local companies interested in attending.
“It’s a multi-sector mission, which includes [the sectors] food and drinks, machinery and equipment and home and building. Some industry associations also showed interest in attending to facilitate the transit of goods”, said Rafael Prado, coordinator of Business Promotion at Apex-Brasil.
According to him, the mission will have from 15 to 20 Brazilian companies. “The expectation is to generate deals worth USD 20 million”, he said. “We are focused on Algeria and Egypt and will pay for buyers from Tunisia to go to Algeria to meet the [Brazilians] businesspersons”, emphasized Prado.
Overall, 50 Arab buyers will take part in the matchmaking. Each Brazilian company should meet the minimum of six importers. In the technical visits, the Brazilian companies will visit supermarkets and also manufacturers of machinery and equipment in both countries.
According to Prado, Algeria and Egypt were indicated as target markets by a survey done for the draft of the National Exports Plan, launched in June of this year by the minister of Development, Industry and Foreign Trade Armando Monteiro. “They are growing countries, ones that import a lot of food from Brazil. In 2014, we reached the second spot as food and drinks suppliers in the Middle East”, explained Prado. In this aspect, Brazil trails only India.
Besides the two countries that the mission will visit, Prado says that Morocco is other North Africa Arab nation that interests the Brazilian market. “Morocco is on our radar. We should set a work plan for Morocco in 2016”, he said.
Brazilian companies that are interested in participating in the mission need to make contact with Apex-Brasil to take part in a selection process. Established operations in the region, bilingual website and the needed certifications to export to those countries are some of the criteria used. Contact must be made with Carla Rodrigues or Rafael Gratão via the email apexbrasil@apexbrasil.com.br.
*Translated by Sérgio Kakitani
