São Paulo – The Arab Brazilian Chamber of Commerce and the Cairo Chamber of Commerce entered into a cooperation agreement on Thursday (2) in the Egyptian capital. The deal was signed on to by the Brazilian organization’s president Rubens Hannun and by the senior vice president of the Egyptian organization, Aly Shoukry. The deal involves the sharing of information and the encouragement of business missions, among other actions.
Hannun, the Arab Chamber’s CEO Michel Alaby and Government Relations manager Tamer Mansour were welcomed by board members from the Egyptian chamber.
According to Hannun, the Cairo Chamber intends to have a mission to Brazil this year, and one of the board executives said he plans on going to the São Paulo Supermarket Industry Fair (Apas), from May 2 to 5 in São Paulo. The executive trades in spices.
The Cairo Chamber also made office space available for the Arab Chamber to use during trips to Egypt, as well as its state-of-the-art 450 seat auditorium for the Brazilian organization to hold events in.
The Arab Brazilian Chamber executives also convened with officials from Egypt’s Ministry of International Cooperation. Amid expectations that Argentina will soon ratify the Mercosur-Egypt free trade agreement, which dates from 2010, they considered hosting seminars on the matter in Brazil and in Egypt – the treaty is only pending ratification from the Argentinians.
“The idea is to have seminar on the opportunities that will arise for the Mercosur and Egypt through this agreement,” explained Hannun. Investment opportunities involving Brazil and Egypt could also be approached. Egypt’s Sahar Nasr is both the minister of International Cooperation and Investment.
Later in the day, the Arab Chamber personnel met with Egypt’s Agriculture Export Council chairman and congressman Abdel Hamid Demerdash, who’s intent on fostering cooperation with Brazil in smallholder farming and research on agriculture and livestock farming.
The Brazilian executives will be in Cairo until Sunday. They will sit down for several more meetings with Egyptian authorities and business leaders.
*Translated by Gabriel Pomerancblum
