São Paulo – Brazilian vice president Michel Temer met with representatives of the Arab Brazilian Chamber of Commerce last Tuesday (24), at his office in Brasília. The organisation’s CEO, Michel Alaby, and the Institutional Relations director, Sylvio Abdalla Jr, met with Temer, who is of Lebanese descent.
The vice president will be honoured by the Arab Brazilian Chamber at the Syrian Sports Club on March 25th, the day of the Arab community in Brazil, and this was one of the themes of the meeting. Another topic discussed was a possible trip by Temer to the Arab world. The vice president is from the interior of São Paulo and his family came to Brazil in 1925.
Ever since he was sworn in as vice president, in 2011, Temer has already promoted several actions to improve ties with the Arab community in Brazil and with the Arab nations. In the year of his inauguration, he travelled to Lebanon, where he met several authorities, among them the president of Lebanon, Michel Sleiman, and the chairman of the Lebanese Parliament, Nabih Berry. His agenda has already also included meetings with the former president of the Arab Brazilian Chamber, Salim Taufic Schahin, and with Arab ambassadors in Brasília.
Temer was asked by president Dilma Rousseff to have active participation in the process for improvement of ties between Brazil and the Arab world, according to information disclosed early into their term in office.
Brazil is the country with the largest community of Lebanese immigrants, from where Temer’s family came. Lebanon was also one of the first Arab nations visited by former president Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, in 2003, early into Brazil’s process of generating closer ties with the Middle East, a process that lasted throughout his term in office.
The meeting between Temer and the Arab Chamber representatives was also attended by the chief parliamentary advisor of the vice presidency, Rodrigo Santos da Rocha Loures.
*Translated by Mark Ament
