São Paulo – A small group of Brazilian businessmen will participate in a mission to the Middle East from May 23rd to June 1st. Led by the chairman of the Curitiba-based Maccon Internacional Consultancy, Mário Sérgio de Araújo Costa, four businessmen will meet with groups from Saudi Arabia, Qatar and the United Arab Emirates to prospect deals in aviation, traffic monitoring, security, oil processing and water treatment.
Marinho Uhlmann, CEO of the Alicerce Business Solution holding company, which owns Maccon, claims that he cannot disclose the names of the companies in the mission, but claims these enterprises already do business abroad. “These companies do business worldwide, in places such as the United States and Europe. Now, the aim is to expand its activities in the Arab world,” he explains.
Meetings will be held in all countries. In Saudi Arabia, the meeting will focus on water treatment. “We will also discuss the creation of a Saudi-Brazilian bank and hospital equipment,” says Uhlmann, referring to the company’s other business in the country, as previously reported by ANBA. In Qatar, meetings will also discuss water treatment, as well as oil processing, and aviation and security will be addressed at meetings in the United Arab Emirates.
“There are Arab companies interested in investing and even buying aviation companies in Brazil,” says the Alicerce CEO. According to him, the businessmen are mostly interested in investing in commercial and cargo routes to secondary destinations in the country, like those linking capitals to the interior, for instance. “These routes require more careful studies,” he says.
Another area of interest to Arab businessmen in Brazil, says the businessman, is the seaport sector. “We have a dry cargo port project near Paranaguá that the Arabs will visit,” he says. On the other hand, Brazilian businessmen in the traffic control, water treatment and oil processing sectors are looking to do business in the Gulf countries.
Uhlmann claims that the commercial integration work promoted by his companies is a purely business-oriented effort. “We are developing a work of entrepreneurs, it has nothing to do with government,” he says. “I am interested in establishing increasingly closer ties between Brazil and the Arab world,” he says.
The Alicerce Business Solution holding company comprises ten different enterprises, which operate in construction, environmental technology, and international business consulting, among others. Established ten years ago, the holding company has been active in the foreign market for five years. The Arab countries in the Middle East are its main focus abroad.
*Translated by Gabriel Pomerancblum
