São Paulo – The Iraqi-born Reyadh Nassir Hanna, who has taken on Brazilian nationality, started started developing a project for cooperative-based exports for small and medium businesses this year. The project focuses on the Middle East. “Many Brazilian companies want to export to that region but can’t due to high cost,” said Hanna, who has been in the export business for 32 years and specializes in the Arab market.
Two companies are already affiliated with the project: Missy, a hard candy and lollipop manufacturing company based in the state of Rio Grande do Sul, and the São Paulo-based Keep Trading, which exports Studio Hair products. Hanna is based in Curitiba, the capital of the state of Paraná, but aims to serve companies from across the country. He wants to set up a group of five companies. They can be active in any field, so long as the network does not include another company in the same line of work.
Hanna believes that there is market aplenty right now in the Middle East and North Africa for products such as biscuits, cosmetics, furniture and doors. The Iraqi plans on starting by Iraq, United Arab Emirates, Algeria and Egypt, where he has several contacts, and then expand into other markets.
Initially, the group will not come together formally under a cooperative, but rather it will share commercial promotion and advertising costs, including prospecting trips and attendance to Arab fairs. Hanna notes that one of the issues that small and medium businesses struggle with is hiring an employee who specializes in exports and is can make them happen, as these professionals are usually paid high wages. Under the project, the companies involved will split the costs of Hanna’s services.
To become a member of the group, a company must be able to export, says the entrepreneur. That entails, for instance, the ability to make labels in English, in Arabic, or even in both these languages at once. Hanna says he is carrying out prospecting work, and has sent samples of products made by the companies involved to Iraq, Kuwait and Egypt, and has contacts underway in the Emirates, Algeria, Morocco and Mauritania.
Hanna was born in Iraq, but moved to Brazil at age 19. He started out his career at the Brazilian Poultry Exporters Union (Unef), already catering to trade with Arab countries. Later he was a manager at other companies in Paraná and then he set up his own company, Double Port Exportação. He also worked for GPS Gestão Empresarial, in the state of Santa Catarina, where he also dealt with the Arab world, and then from 2008 to 2011 he worked at Albaggara General Trading, his own foreign trade company, based in Dubai.
In 2011, the region’s economy was strongly affected by the United States crisis and he decided to return to Brazil. Hanna says the Arab market is improving again now, and areas in which he worked, such as wood and doors, are bouncing back.
Contact:
Reyahd Nassir Hanna
Telefphne: +55 (41) 9128-4952 or (41) 9741-0621
Email: reyadh.nassir@hotmail.com
*Translated by Gabriel Pomerancblum
