São Paulo – The Minister of Foreign Affairs of the Emirates, Abdallah bin Zayed Nahyan, should have, starting today (19th), a series of meetings in Brazil. One of them, to take place on Monday, is with the minister of Foreign Relations, Celso Amorim. A delegation of businessmen, which has been in the country for a week, is accompanying the minister.
Nahyan’s agenda also includes meetings with the governors of the states of São Paulo, José Serra, and Rio de Janeiro, Sérgio Cabral. On Tuesday, the minister should participate in a presentation of the design of the new port terminal of the Brazilian Port Terminal Company (Embraport), in Santos, which is being built in partnership with Dubai Port World, from the United Arab Emirates. The Arab company should be the operator of the largest private multimodal terminal in Brazil.
Since August, DP World, the FGTS Investment Fund (FI-FGTS), Coimex Group and Odebrecht Investment in Infrastructure (OII) are shareholders in Embraport. At presentation of the project, also present should be Sultan Ahmed bin Sulayem, the CEO of Dubai World, which is responsible for DP World, the head minister of the Special Secretariat for Ports, Pedro Brito Nascimento, and the mayor of Santos, João Paulo Tavares Papa.
The value to be invested in the port is 1.1 billion Brazilian reals (US$ 642 million), with 70% coming from financing and 30% from Embraport capital. The beginning of operations is scheduled for 2012, and the capacity should be for the throughput of one million twenty-foot equivalent units (TEUs) per year. When the project is completed, in 2014, the annual capacity should be 1.5 million containers and around 2 billion litres of ethanol. The site should have railway and highway access and a capacity to receive vessels of up to 330 metres.
Bilateral trade
Brazilian exports to the Emirates total US$ 1.3 billion from January to September, which represented growth of 38% over the same period last year. The main products shipped were sugar, chicken, aircraft, gold and iron billets. On the other hand, Brazilian imports from the Arab countries generated US$ 82.8 million, against US$ 671.8 million in the same comparison.
*Translated by Mark Ament