São Paulo – The representative office of the Brazilian Ministry of Foreign Affairs (Itamaraty) in São Paulo wants to intensify its relationship with business organizations and establish a stronger performance in the trade promotion area. To this end, ambassador Débora Barenboim-Salej, who took over the head post of the office in May, visited the Arab Brazilian Chamber of Commerce on Monday (13th) night and met with the Chamber’s directors.
“We’re looking to change the profile [of our work] a little, to interact more with business organizations, such as the commerce chambers and associations, to be able to make the best out of, for instance, trade missions”, said the diplomat to ANBA.
According to her, in the case of a foreign delegation visiting the city, the idea is to gather information about business opportunities beforehand with different organizations for the setup of a more focused agenda.
Likewise, when Brazilian businessmen travel abroad, the ambassador said that Itamaraty’s office can contact the trade promotion sectors from diplomatic representations abroad in search of information that could help business.
“The Secoms [trade bureaux of the embassies] can produce an advanced intelligence work”, she pointed out. “And we can make use of this trade intelligence to place at the disposal of the members [of organizations such as the Arab Chamber]”, she added.
Débora has a longstanding experience in the area, since she already headed Secoms of Brazilian embassies at Mexico City, Paris and Vienna, Austria, and was responsible for the sector also when she worked as Brazil’s ambassador in Ljubljana, Slovenia, and as consul general in Cape Town, South Africa.
“They were widely varying experiences that allowed me to form a knowledge framework of trade abroad that could be helpful”, said the diplomat.
The ambassador was accompanied by Lanier de Moraes, responsible for the trade area of Itamaraty’s office in São Paulo, and was welcomed at the Arab Chamber by president Marcelo Sallum, vice-president of Foreign Trade Rubens Hannun, CEO Michel Alaby and other executives of the organization.
The diplomat emphasized that the Arab Chamber is an important institution for trade and for Brazil’s foreign relations and a “reference point” for the work of the office concerning the relationship with Arabs.
About the work of the office, she added that there were two “main dimensions”: a ceremonial one, of support to foreign missions that come to São Paulo, and a consular one, dedicated to the legalization of Brazilian documents to be used abroad, such as marriage certificates, diplomas, among others.
The latter activity, according to her, “grows exponentially” and since the office changed locations for a new address, at Rua da Consolação, in downtown São Paulo, the service to meet these demands is now in-presence, whereas before it was done via mail. The ambassador said that 350 people request this service daily, with 4.5 documents each, on average.
*Translated by Sérgio Kakitani
