São Paulo – Brazilian personal hygiene, perfumery and cosmetic products will have promotion in points of sale in the United Arab Emirates. This is a novelty among the actions forecasted in the Beautycare Brazil Programme for the next two years and turned to the region. The project focus is fostering sector company exports and is promoted by the Brazilian Export and Investment Promotion Agency (Apex) and the Brazilian Association of Toiletries, Perfumes & Cosmetics Industries (Abihpec), which renewed the partnership for the 2012-2014 period on Thursday (27), in São Paulo.
The programme forecasts a series of actions for markets defined as the focus, and the Arab country is among them once again. The others are Angola, Colombia, the United States, Peru and Portugal. The emirates have been among the priorities since 2004. For the new period, the companies integrating Beautycare Brazil are going to participate in the next edition of the Beautyworld Middle East fair, in Dubai, and there will also be delegations for prospection in the emirate.
In this edition, it will be the first time, however, that promotional actions for demonstration of products and retail distribution of products will take place, according to the Foreign Trade director at Abihpec, Silvana Gomes. There is not yet a specific date defined for the initiative, but any one of the 25 companies that are part of the project may enrol and work on promotion if they comply with a series of criteria. It is important, however, to have a good distribution network in the region to be able to execute this kind of action, said Gomes.
The delegation for prospecting in the Emirates will be one of the partners in the Beautycare Brazil project with the Central Exportaminas, an incentive programme to exports of the state of Minas Gerais, he informs. It will also include Egypt and Saudi Arabia, according to Gomes, despite these destinations not being among the main focuses of the project. There are other actions that include all target markets – and, therefore, the Emirates too –, like company qualification with pointers regarding regulatory matters for each country and the checking of preparation of the industry for the international market, a process that takes 12 months.
According to Gomes, the Emirates is among the priorities of the Beuatycare Brazil as it is a market that is growing in the sector. “There has never been a reduction in sales to the Middle East. Even in periods of export crisis they simply stagnate and they are now growing again,” said the Foreign Trade director at Abihpec. Exports of companies that are included in the programme generated US$ 132 million in 2011, with growth of 20% over the previous year, above sector expansion as a whole, which was 8.7% in the period and accumulated US$ 754 million.
Renovation of the agreement was signed by the Apex Business director, Rogério Bellini, and by Abihpec president João Carlos Basilio. Before the ceremony at Hotel Tivoli, seminar “Exportar é Inovar” (Exporting is Innovating) took place, with the objective of clarifying the Apex actions. At the opportunity, Bellini explained that the organisation’s promotion strategy includes from training for export to promotion of seminars with information regarding specificities of each market and the training of sector organisations. Last year 3,500 companies were trained, with ten seminars and 150 association representatives involved.
To cosmetics sector businessmen, Basílio pointed out the sector advances, with revenues of US$ 43 billion last year, and managed to help create a great consumer market in Brazil. The country is currently the third main cosmetics market in the world. “Of every five deodorants traded worldwide, one is Brazilian,” said the Abihpec president. The creation of cheaper packages was decisive for such, according to him. “If we do not have a strong market, we cannot be competitive to export our products,” he said. Every five years, 60% of the industry portfolio is renewed, according to the executive.
*Translated by Mark Ament
