Dubai – Besides the main conference, the Annual Investment Meeting (AIM), forum on foreign direct investments that ended this Wednesday (11) in Dubai, included an expo for countries and companies looking to attract investments, with B2B meetings between them and potential investors. Brazilians attended the event to pitch their projects and attract funds.
Casemiro Tércio Carvalho, from São Paulo-based Garín Investimentos, attended the meetings and talked with many potential investors. “This event plays an important role, which is aligning expectations,” he said, meaning that the forum works as a thermometer for the viability of a project’s features to international investors.
Garín’s focus is to attract funds to ventures in Brazil, in the infrastructure sector, although the company has also included in its portfolio a project of a meat packing company 100% halal, that is, where animal slaughtering conforms to the Muslim tradition. “Our purpose is to be a bridge to foreign direct investments,” said Carvalho.
The company presented projects in the sectors of ports, iron ore, logistics, gas-fired thermal plants, among others. In AIM’s last day, Carvalho was pleased with some of the contacts that he made.
The CEO of the Paraná state investment agency (Agência Paraná de Desenvolvimento – Investe Paraná), Adalberto Netto, and the coordinator of Foreign Investments at Brazil’s Ministry of Agriculture, Reinaldo Vergara, also attended the meetings. Netto also spoke at a panel on investments in Latin America.
“It’s one of the main events on investment attraction,” said Netto, who has now attended AIM for the third time. “We have been getting a good feedback,” he said, adding that the conference is also a good learning opportunity.
In this edition, Investe Paraná started negotiations on an agreement with the Abu Dhabi Investment Office, the emirate’s investment promotion agency. “We’re searching for complimentary points, areas of synergy,” he pointed out.
Netto and Vergara also met with potential investors, the holding company Loukil, from Tunisia, and the agribusiness multinational company Olam. “They know the Brazilian market and are open to extend their participation,” said Vergara.
The Itaqui Port Authority chairman, Ted Lago, was another Brazilian that attended the meetings. Besides the fund raising, he wants to expand business with the Middle East via the port. “Our idea is to connect Brazil’s Midwest and North with the Middle East via Itaqui,” he said
The port handles large amounts of grains and has a connection with one of Brazil’s main producing regions via the North-South Railway. “But we also want to add value to grains,” said Lago. The goal is to attract investments to the state’s meat processing industry.
He also said that the Brazilian region covered by the port is a market of 50 million people and that there are opportunities in the field of fuels to Arab companies. “We are the top gasoline-importing port in Brazil and the second or third in diesel importing,” he stated.
Translated by Sérgio Kakitani
