São Paulo – Diplomat Adriano Silva Pucci will be the first Brazilian resident ambassador in Manama, Bahrain. Brazil’s newest embassy, which opened in November 2021, is assembling a team, and Pucci will take up his post in early September. This will be his first post as an ambassador.
For Pucci, the embassy in Bahrain complements Brazil’s diplomatic relations in the Gulf region. “This new embassy, which today is our youngest – soon there could be others, but at the moment, it is the newest in our network of posts abroad – completes a table; it closes a cycle of Brazil’s presence in the Gulf,” he declared to ANBA.
“Bilateral relations deserve this increase in the level of dialogue,” he said. Bahrain opened an embassy in Brasília in 2018 and has an ambassador there. “Brazil has now reciprocated this gesture according to expectations,” he said.
In 2024, Bahrain and Brazil will celebrate 50 years of diplomatic relations. “There is a long history that started in 1974; in the beginning, it was an accumulation of activities by Saudi Arabia, then Kuwait, and only in November 2021 did Brazil open an embassy there. And now, I will be Brazil’s first resident ambassador. I understand the weight of that responsibility and am excited about this challenge,” said Pucci.
The diplomat informed this was a planned presence, part of a project between the countries. “It is a strategic insertion that comes to an action plan project. The governments are studying, outlining a five-year action plan to cover the priority areas; politics, trade, defense, science, technology – which comes with the environment – and sports and culture,” he said.
The five-year action plan will be implemented as soon as Pucci takes up post and could be completed by 2028, following these five principal action axes, in parallel with the opening of a commercial sector and the moving of the consular sector, which currently operates in Kuwait City, to Manama.
“The consular section, as soon as we get there, we will seek to open; it depends on the expansion of the embassy space, which is under study. The authorization to open has to come from Brasilia, and we are receiving favorable signals in the sense of installing an in-person consular sector there, as we have 200 to 250 Brazilians in the country,” he said.
This is Pucci’s first post as ambassador. In his career at the Brazilian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, he was minister counselor – the second most important position – at the Brazilian embassies in the Holy See [Vatican] and Madrid [Spain].
“Before that, I served in the mission to the United Nations in New York and the embassies in Caracas [Venezuela] and Montevideo [Uruguay]. I am delighted with the prospect of looking at our continent from afar and having a different perspective from the point of view outside the West,” he said.
“I consider the embassy an open book; we are writing the first pages. I hope to do a job mainly of structuring and implementing the various Memoranda of Understanding (MoUs) and agreements already signed,” declared the ambassador.
He mentioned as an example a 2018 air services agreement to allow direct flights between Brazil and Bahrain. There is also an MoU in the cultural area between diplomatic academies, according to Pucci, and the framework agreement on military cooperation, which was signed in September 2022, and is pending in the Brazilian Senate.
“The signing of this agreement will create an inclusive framework for the cooperation of forces and allow a better insertion of our defense industrial base in Bahrain; we could also export ammunition and other equipment,” he said. According to him, Brazil already exports to the country in the area, but there could be a more significant movement of Brazilian companies in this market.
“Another agreement is that of the Brazilian Navy, which has twice held command of a multinational task force to combat piracy in the Horn of Africa, called the combined task force CTF-151. The Brazilian Navy could lead for the third time; there is a well-known presence of the Brazilian Navy in the region,” he informed.
Pucci declared he has the support of the Brazilian business community interested in the Arab market to expand its presence in the country, and the Brazilian embassy will be available as an instrument for bringing the two countries closer together.
Bilateral trade
Bahrain was the fifth leading Arab destination for Brazilian exports in 2022 and the ninth Arab supplier to Brazil last year. In 2021, 96% of exports from Brazil to Bahrain were iron ore. Other products were poultry, petroleum coke, hollow iron and steel tubes and profiles, and chemical wood pulp. In the same year, Brazil imported mainly aluminum from Bahrain (43%) and oil and fertilizers.
Pucci visited the Arab Brazilian Chamber of Commerce (ABCC) this Friday (11) and was welcomed by the organization’s president, ambassador Osmar Chohfi, and Institutional Relations analyst, Elaine Prates.
Translated by Elúsio Brasileiro
