São Paulo – Egypt wants to hold an economic forum with companies and representatives of its government and Brazil’s in 2016. The proposal was discussed this Thursday (10th) by the manager of Government Relations of the Arab Brazilian Chamber of Commerce, Tamer Mansour, and representatives of the General Authority for Investment and Free Zones (GAFI, in the English acronym) in Cairo.
“They want to hold an economic forum in Brazil, possibly in May of 2016 with companies and governments with a focus on the sectors of infrastructure, food, auto and textile”, said Mansour.
Also this Thursday, the manager of Government Relations visited Egypt Customs, the customs agency of the Arab country. There, he presented the digital certification of documents. This technology is being implemented by the Arab Chamber and is used for the issuance of documents that certify the origin of products exported by Brazil to the Arabs. “They were interested and receptive to implementing online certification. They asked for the visit of a staff member of the Arab Chamber to start the implementation of the certification at Egypt Customs and to present it to the agency’s technicians”, said Mansour.
The Arab Chamber already certifies the documents but the process is migrating to the online platform. For it to be adopted, partnerships with the customs’ agency of each country are needed.
The online certification could be presented to the Egypt Customs’ technicians in November and the adoption of the system between the Arab Chamber and the Egypt Customs would take place after that. Initially, certification through the digital format would be applied to beef and poultry exports, which are the ones with a higher volume among Brazil’s sales to Egypt. In another phase, other export products would be integrated to the system. The online certification that is being adopted by the Arab Chamber reduces the time needed for the clearance of products for exports, cuts costs and prevents fraud.
Besides Egypt, Mansour and the executive of International Relations for the Levant and Nile of the Arab Chamber, Denise Guirau, visited Jordan and Lebanon. “In these visits, the Arab Chamber had the opportunity to work closer with Brazil’s embassies in Lebanon and Jordan, especially. In Egypt, we had an important opportunity to present the online certification and to talk in length about the moment that Egypt is going through (of economic recovery after the inauguration of president Abdel Fattah El-Sisi, in 2014)”, said Mansour.
He and Guirau also visited the agricultural machinery and food fair Sahara, which is taking place in Cairo. Mansour said that there are opportunities to promote the attendance of Brazilian companies in the next editions of the event in a partnership with Brazil’s embassy in Cairo.
*Translated by Sérgio Kakitani
