Santos – A delegation of executives from the Egyptian Customs Authority is in Brazil for a series of meetings with Brazilian logistics officials. The first visits of the group took place on Tuesday (2) in institutions in the city of Santos, home to the largest port complex in Latin America. The schedule of the delegation is organized by the Arab Brazilian Chamber of Commerce (ABCC).
The Arab group includes Ali Galal Youssef Ghanem, director general of the minister’s Affairs Office of the Egyptian Customs Authority; Diaa Mohamed Mabrouk, director of the Implementation and Monitoring Department; Ahmed Nabil Ismail, director of the Systems Analysis Department; Mona Elsherbeny, Technology general manager of the Egyptian Customs Authority; Mohamed Fathy Khamis, head of the Technology Sector of the Egyptian Customs Authority; Osama Mohamed Abd Elkarim, head of the Central Department of Information and Communication Technology; Ahmed Abo Elhassan, head of the Central Directorate of Affairs of the Office of the Egyptian Customs Authority; and Ashraf Awad Abdelmonem Mohamed, Database programmer and developer at the Egyptian Customs Authority.
The group visited the area of the Port of Santos and the various terminals that take care of the loading and unloading of different products. The places see the handling of bulk cargoes like soybeans and sugar, and goods like pulp, orange juice, fertilizers, and agricultural vehicles and machinery. Many of these products are part of Egypt-Brazil trade balance.
The Egyptians were welcomed by executives of the Santos Port Authority: Antonio de Pádua Andrade, director of Operations; Dennis Christofer Silva, Social Communications technician; Ricardo Moreira, superintendent; Roberto Paveck Pinheiro, Logistics Planning manager; Caio Menezes Daniel, Logistics Access supervisor.
Cleiton Alves dos Santos João Simões, of the Santos Customs Office. The exchange of information between customs authorities is very important. The differences and similarities can help the countries improve their processes by seeing the strengths and weaknesses that bring us together. An aspect I’d like to stress is their curiosity, asking questions and wanting to learn more about how customs are made in Brazil,” he told ANBA.
Another meeting took place in the Satel firm, which specializes in customs clearance, where executives Victor Moreira Santos and Gabriela Moreira Santos and Satel export coordinator Bruno Duarte presented an overview of the company’s work in the trade with Egypt, as well as the main challenges faced in this process.
Accompanying the delegation, ABCC secretary-general & CEO Tamer Mansour also considered the meetings to be fruitful. “It’s important this rapprochement between the Brazilian and Egyptian customs authorities and the Port of Santos, where nearly 70% of exports are handled. Then the visit to Satel was very relevant as they got a closer look at the documentation process to a country like Egypt and the barriers and opportunities for improvement,” he said.
The delegation will have other appointments throughout the week and go through the Brazilian capital city on Wednesday (3). Topics to be addressed in Brasília will include certifications related to the Ministry of Agriculture and Livestock, as well as the integration of the Egyptian Customs to the ABCC’s Ellos Blockchain platform and other Brazilian systems.
Ellos Blockchain is a blockchain platform developed by the ABCC to digitize the Brazil-Arab trade. The solution includes Easy Trade, a tool that makes the foreign trade process electronic, thus eliminating the use of paper and shortening times and costs. The institution has already used Easy Trade in exports from Brazil to Jordan and expects to do the same with Egypt soon.
“Our main goal is to accelerate this integration between Ellos and the Egyptian Customs. And we’ll have this whole week of this technical hard work. And we hope the result will be an early date for the integration tests and acceleration between the Ellos Easy Trade and the Egyptian Customs to happen,” Mansour finished.
Nashwa Mohamed Salaheddin Mostafa Bakr, Egyptian Commercial consul to São Paulo, also participated in the delegation. The delegation also featured ABCC’s Technology director Marcos Bulgarelli; Cairo Office head Michael Gamal; Strategic Projects advisor Estevão Carvalho; Institutional Relations advisor Bassel Abou Latif; and Ellos Business analyst Laércio Zeferino.
Translated by Guilherme Miranda
