São Paulo – Directors of the Arab Brazilian Chamber of Commerce were welcomed by Brazil’s vice president Michel Temer this Tuesday afternoon (3rd) in Brasília. According to the Chamber’s president Marcelo Sallum, who attended the meeting, an invitation was extended to Temer to visit three Arab countries this year: Algeria, Morocco, and Qatar.
“We made the referral to him and he made a point of considering it,” said Sallum. “The idea is to have a trip along the lines of the vice president’s last visit to Oman [with the participation of the Arab Brazilian Chamber], i.e. at once institutional and business-oriented,” he added. Temer travelled to the Arabian Peninsula country in early April, accompanied by a business delegation.
According to information from the Brazilian Presidency’s website, Temer “welcomed the invite and stressed the importance of an institutional visit combined with a business mission aiming to strike deals.”
The VP was entrusted by president Dilma Rousseff with tending to Brazil’s relations with Arab countries. Temer is a son to Lebanese parents, and apart from Oman, he has paid an official visit to Lebanon. On March 25th this year, the Day of the Arab Community in Brazil, he was honoured by the Arab Brazilian Chamber and expressed his interest in visiting other countries in the Middle East and North Africa.
Temer is currently the acting president, because Rousseff is now in Russia to attend the G20 summit meeting. She arrived this Tuesday in Saint Petersburg. The meeting of the group of the world’s leading developed and emerging economies will continue until Friday (6th).
Apart from Sallum, the meeting with Temer was attended by the Arab Brazilian Chamber CEO Michel Alaby, Foreign Trade vice president Rubens Hannun, and director Sylvio Abdallah Júnior.
*Translated by Gabriel Pomerancblum
