São Paulo – Representatives of Brazilian manufacturers of plastic products for the construction and home appliances sectors met with Pakistani entrepreneurs that own businesses in Dubai, United Arab Emirates, during the trade expo The Big 5 (picture above), which runs until this Thursday (29) in the emirate. The visit to the trade fair is part of the schedule of a business mission to Dubai organized by the Think Plastic Brazil program, a partnership between the National Plastic Institute (INP) and the Brazilian Trade and Investment Promotion Agency (Apex-Brasil). The program has the support of the Arab Brazilian Chamber of Commerce.
The companies Grupo Alfamec, Astra, Bandeirante, IVPlast, Plasutil, Promaflex, São Bernardo and Sansuy sent representatives to the emirate. In addition to visiting The Big 5, the group attended B2B meetings in Dubai and Abu Dhabi, plus it visited supermarkets and construction materials and supplies stores.
“This is a benchmarking mission and for meetings with potential buyers of the plastic products from the companies that came from Brazil,” said the Arab Chamber’s executive of International Business Rafael Solimeo (4th from right to left, in the picture above). “The representatives of the Brazilian companies are talking with local companies and distributors to better understand the Gulf region market,” he explained.
Regarding the meeting with Pakistani entrepreneurs, Solimeo said that the Pakistan Business Council invited the business mission for a B2B meeting in its stand at the trade expo. “Pakistan uses Dubai as a hub to distribute its products in the Gulf, Arab world, Asia and Africa,” he explained. According to Solimeo, the council is made up of Pakistani entrepreneurs with businesses in the UAE. “With this meeting, the Brazilian business owners got to know companies that are potential buyers and that can develop sales of Brazilian products not only in Dubai, but in all of these regions,” he said. Pakistan is a South Asia Islamic country.
Marcelo Velletri (1st, from right to left, in the picture), Product Management director of Promaflex, manufacturer of plastic films, told ANBA that he talked with representatives of large Dubai companies. “At the fair, we met with entrepreneurs from Pakistan and it was a very productive meeting because, in the previous day, we had met a Pakistani owner of a business in Dubai; I believe he was pleased with our products and saw the possibility to expand, of sales, and invited us for this meeting with businessmen from the Pakistan Business Council, who welcomed us very well, and we were able to exchange ideas, business cards, products; now we’re bringing a long homework back home to Brazil, to go over again the contacts and send materials that were requested,” he said.
The Promaflex’s director is optimistic with the mission’s results. “We have high expectations for these meetings, for them to turn into future deals. There is a great possibility to expand in this market here [Dubai] and I would like to thank Rafael [Solimeo] and the Arab Chamber, who have done an excellent job, and the staff of Think Plastic for bringing us here. I believe that more actions like this one should be done in the future, aiming at other Arab countries, since it was very productive,” concluded Velletri.
Translated by Sérgio Kakitani
