São Paulo – The director of Raheb Group, Shahram Raheb, came to the 27th edition of the Management Congress and International Supermarket Business Fair, with one objective: selling Guaraná in the countries of the Middle East. The drink developed in Brazil by Antarctica in 1921 is not yet sold in the Arab world. Raheb is one of the 34 foreigners invited by the Brazilian Export and Investment Promotion Agency (Apex) to participate in the event organised at the Expo Center Norte, in São Paulo, by the São Paulo State Supermarket Association (Apas).
"I want to introduce Guaraná to the market in the Middle East, as it does not yet know the drink,” said Raheb. He discarded the hypothesis of importing the product, as freight from Brazil to Dubai, where the company is headquartered, makes Guaraná more expensive and makes sales impossible. He said that it would be ideal to establish a joint venture with the producer of Guaraná, Ambev. "The idea would be to import the concentrate, the Guaraná essence, and from there produce the beverage,” he said. He visited the company’s stand, but should still meet representatives of the foreign relations department at the company to make the proposal. "We have millions of dollars to invest in this project,” he said, without specifying the volume. Ambev was sought at the fair, but made no comment.
Raheb believes that Guaraná may be very successful in the countries of the Middle East and Africa as they already consume a beverage there that has a similar taste. “We drink Orangina there and the taste is similar to that of Guaraná. Our company bottles mineral water, and also sells concentrated juice. We know the sector and have all that is necessary to be successful there,” said the businessman, who comes to Brazil every year.
Another businessman who came to the country to visit Apas and seek business with the Brazilians was the Lebanese Fadi Abou Haidar. He came to Brazil aiming to attract companies to the countries of the Middle East. One of the companies he represents is Ali bin Ali, which operates in retail and sells from soft drinks to jewels and luxury watches. “Brazilians must view the Middle East as a gateway. The region has a large and important consumer market, but is a gateway into Asia, a continent that has countries like India and China, with the largest population on the planet,” he pointed out.
But, to do business with the Asians, according to Haidar, Brazilians must be faster and less bureaucratic on shipping. This way, they may gain competitiveness. “If I buy in Brazil, it will take 45 days to ship the products, another 30 at sea and another 45 days for distribution. In Australia, it takes one week for the product to be shipped. In Singapore, shipping a container full of products is as simple as a passenger boarding a ship,” he compared.
Despite the logistics bottlenecks faced by exporters, the tendency is for Brazilians to gain market in coming years. The business analyst at Apex who is accompanying the businessmen in this edition of Apas, Guilherme Machado, said that this year the fair received three times more foreigners than in 2010. There are 34 foreigners (12 brought by the Apas) at the fair. Last year, there were 10. "The tendency is for more businessmen to come each year. Brazil attracts people as it is entering new markets. All those we brought represent great companies, emporiums and supermarkets,” he said. He forecasts that foreigners should buy US$ 5 million in products during the fair, to end on Thursday (12). "But purchases should rise to US$ 20 million over the next 12 months due to contracts signed at the event,” he said.
Although companies in Latin America are still the main Brazilian partners in this sector, said Machado, foreigners in other regions of the world are gaining space. “Apex has seven offices outside the country (United States, Russia, China, Cuba, Angola, Dubai and Belgium). Businessmen in Africa, the Middle East and Europe are the ones that present the greatest interest,” he said.
*Translated by Mark Ament
