São Paulo – The meeting of the Brazil-Saudi Arabia Joint Commission, to be held in Brasilia in April, will have as one of its themes the establishment of a joint business council of the countries, according to Arab Brazilian Chamber of Commerce CEO, Michel Alaby, who is on a trip through Saudi Arabia, followed by the Tamer Mansour, the organization’s Government Relations manager.
The joint committees have the purpose of debating the bilateral relation issues that are of interest to the governments and private sector. The business council consists of businessmen, sector leaders and organizations, and work to promote commerce and investments among countries and regions. According to Alaby, the last meeting of the commission was held in 1981.
“Saudi Arabia is Brazil’s main commercial partner in the Arab world”, remarks the CEO. From all the Brazilian exports to the Arab world last year, a total of US$ 13.4 billion, the Saudis were responsible for US$ 2.5 billion. In imports, from the US$ 11.4 billion that Brazil imported from Arab markets, US$ 3.2 billion came from Saudi Arabia.
From the Arab country, Brazil imported mainly oil and its products. While the Saudi buy from the Brazilian market mainly poultry and beef, sugar and cereals. Currently, Saudi Arabia is holding an embargo to Brazilian beef. But poultry weighs heavily in the balance and represented half of Brazilian exports to the Saudi in 2014, according to data from the Ministry of Development, Industry and Foreign Trade (MDIC).
The subject of the joint committee was discussed by Alaby last weekend in a meeting with Khaled Al Otaibi and Abdullah Al Saadon, secretary general and CEO, respectively, of the Council for Saudi Chambers of Commerce, plus other leaders.
In the meeting, Alaby also presented the Arab Chamber’s project for online certification, which is to be implemented this year. The new system makes more agile the certification of origin and the legalization of documents for product exports from Brazil to the Arab countries, services provided by the Arab Chamber and Arab embassies. The proposal was presented and approved by the Arab League in 2014.
The online certification was also the subject of other meeting attended by Alaby and Mansour in Saudi Arabia last weekend, at the Saudi Food & Drug Authority (SFDA). According to the Arab Chamber’s CEO, they were enthusiastic about the system.
They were welcomed by the director of International Relations of the SFDA, Abdullah Al Guraili, and by the head of Inspection of Establishments Abroad, Mustapha Hassib, besides other advisors.
Other issue discussed was the embargo on Brazilian beef. According to the authorities that met with Alaby, the Arab country is awaiting the arrival of the original documents to follow up on the process of the embargo lifting. They believe that it can happen until the end of the semester.
*Translated by Sérgio Kakitani
