São Paulo – An Egyptian conglomerate wants to import up to 2,000 tons of Brazilian chicken in this half of the year. This Friday (24th), representative Tarek Said Said visited to the Arab Brazilian Chamber of Commerce, in São Paulo, and told ANBA that Egypt wishes to buy chicken directly from Brazil to cut down on paperwork and the issues that buying from third parties entails.
“We are a group of businessmen from various industries. I, for instance, am an engineer and I work in the cards industry. We support the new Egyptian government (of president Abdel Fattah El-Sisi, who took office in June 2014) and the country needs food. Egypt already buys chicken from Brazil, but we want to deal directly with the supplier,” said Said, the president of Egy International Import & Export Commercial Agencies.
He claimed that at this time, some of the Brazilian chicken entering Egypt is bought from companies that buy the product in other countries and then resell. Said’s conglomerate wants to reduce the number of businesses involved, which could make the product cheaper and minimize red tape. The first step, he said, is to get in touch with suppliers.
The group plans on importing up to 2,000 tons by June of griller chicken, which is sold whole and weighs between 800 and 1.300 grams. “We want to buy this amount to meet the demand during Ramadan,” he said, referring to the holy month of Muslims. This year, Ramadan will be celebrated from June 18th to July 17th. During this time period, Muslims fast from sunup to sundown and only eat at night.
“After that, we shouldn’t purchase any chicken for two months, and then in the second half we expect to buy at least 1,000 tons per month. We wish to import other foodstuffs from Brazil, such as sugar,” Said asserted.
At the Arab Chamber, he was welcomed by business executives Hans Lazarte and Edson Mattar, who should arrange meetings between Said and potential suppliers next week. Said will be in Brazil until Wednesday (29th), when he will return to Cairo.
In 2014, Egypt imported US$ 126 million worth of poultry from Brazil, down 19.4% 2013. Volume-wise, imports were down 8.8% to 79,700 tons a year. In March this year, Brazil shipped 9,300 tons of chicken to the North African country, down 25.4% from March 2014, according to information from the Ministry of Development, Industry and Foreign Trade compiled by the Arab Chamber.
*Translated by Gabriel Pomerancblum
