Dubai – In his last day of appointments overseas, Brazil’s Bahia governor Rui Costa (PT) visited on Thursday (28) the center for coffee of Dubai Multi Commodities Center (DMCC), a free zone that specializes in imports and exports of agricultural products in the United Arab Emirates. He was welcomed by CEO Ahmed bin Sulayem, who led the governor on a tour so that he could have an idea of how the center for coffee to be launched in the free zone will be like. At the end of the visit, Sulayem made several types of coffees for the governor and his accompanying delegation to taste. Pictured above, Costa and Sulayem.
Costa visited the coffee processing plant that buys, rates, packages and exports coffees from around the world. DMCC intends to open a center for coffee with a similar process and is very interested in cacao from Ilhéus, Bahia, since Sulayem visited cacao farms in Bahia last September. On the occasion, Sulayem also visited the headquarters of the Arab Brazilian Chamber of Commerce (ABCC) in São Paulo, and a memorandum of understanding was signed between the entities.
“We produce the best cacao of Brazil, and they are very interested in starting processing cacao from Bahia. We’ll take the opportunity to send them other products like cotton, cashew nuts, and gourmet coffee, which also have a great potential and a very high quality,” Costa said. He mentioned there are specialty coffee farms and cooperatives in Bahia.
Some businesspeople participated in the governor’s delegation. These included Luis Carlos Bergamashi, chairman of Bahia Association of Cotton Producers (ABAPA), who presented the cotton produced in western Bahia.
Sulayem said that the first cocoa beans to be process in the future center for cacao at DMCC will be from Bahia. “I visited Ilhéus and saw the cabruca agroforestry system, which is amazing. We’re relying on Bahia for this trade partnership with cacao,” he said.
The center brings together coffees from different producing regions of the world, including Brazil, which, besides standard 60-kg green coffee bags, Sulayem said, is the only country to send 1-tonne bags, thus making the logistics for large volumes easier. The center is home to two Brazilian coffee companies, too, Gostoso Coffee and Três Marias Coffee, which produces instant coffee from specialty beans.
The international mission of Bahia’s governor started on October 18 and went through Germany, Kazakhstan, Czech Republic and is ending in the UAE, where they arrived on Monday (25) to return to Brazil on Friday (29). ABCC brokered the meeting, and the visit was attended by president Osmar Chohfi, secretary-general Tamer Mansour, head of Dubai international office Rafael Solimeo, Institutional Relations manager Fernanda Baltazar, and international business executive Noury Dweidary.
Translated by Guilherme Miranda
