São Paulo – Egyptian consul-general in Rio de Janeiro Heba Sidhom said that water exploration is a concern for her country and expressed on Friday (3) the desire to find partner institutions in Brazil that can help Egypt and exchange knowledge in water exploration and clean energy generation projects, a concern of Egyptian President Abdel Fattah El-Sisi. Sidhom visited the Arab-Brazilian Chamber of Commerce (ABCC) in São Paulo, where she was welcomed by its president Osmar Chohfi, CEO & secretary-general Tamer Mansour and institutional relations director Fernanda Baltazar.
“Water today is at the top of our issues,” she said when asking the ABCC executives if Brazilian institutions could become partners and transfer technological knowledge in projects of water desalination, clean energy, and water exploration. Chohfi said Brazil is a country well prepared for water management, as it gets nearly 70% of its energy mix from hydroelectric plants, but doesn’t carry out big seawater desalination processes. Baltazar said there are institutions, particularly universities, developing water use research and projects and can work in partnership with Egypt.
Brazil-Egypt trade
Other two topics were the digital certification of export documents for Brazilian goods to enter Egypt and the expansion of trade between the two countries. Last year, Brazil exported USD 2.3 billion to Egypt, particularly in sugar and meats, and imported USD 489 million, over half of it for fertilizers, Both Sidhom and Chohfi and Mansour agreed that there is room to diversify exports and imports to included higher value added products.
Read more:
President Lula arrives in Egypt for official visit
Brazil, Egypt ink deals during Lula’s official visit
“Trade declined in 2023 compared to 2022, especially because of external conditions like dollar variation, but we’ve noticed a recovery since,” said Mansour. “We believe in the couple of years, exports and imports are expected to post very good results as the trade relationship is very good and because of BRICS,” said Mansour referring to the group previously consisting of Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa that has now widened to include Saudi Arabia, Egypt, the United Arab Emirates, Ethiopia, and Iran, the latter two not Arab countries.
“Lula’s visit to Egypt contributed to boost a friendly political environment,” said Sidhom on the Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva’s visit to Egypt and Ethiopia last February. She pointed out that Lula was also in Egypt in 2022, soon after being elected president but before his inauguration to attend the COP27 climate summit, which was held in Sharm-El-Sheik. Sidhom was chief of protocol and was instructed to provide him with the highest welcome protocols.
Translated by Guilherme Miranda
