São Paulo – Libya wants Brazil’s cooperation in various fields ranging from oil to agriculture. The Arab country also wants to attract more Brazilian companies to operating in its territory. These were some of the matters discussed by the Brazilian federal representative Adrian Mussi, president of the Brazil-Libya Parliamentary Association (Frente Parlamentar Brasil-Líbia), who visited Tripoli last week and had meetings with the country’s president, Mohamed Magariaf, ministers and parliament officials.
“Libya wants to open up its market to Brazilian companies. We discussed the participation of Brazilian companies in the ongoing transitional phase in Libya, and the possibility of Petrobras eventually increasing its presence there,” says Mussi. “Right now there are three companies, Odebrecht, Queiroz Galvão and Andrade Gutierrez, with contracts on standby there. We also discussed the resumption of work by these companies in the country,” he says.
Besides Magariaf, the talks on Brazilian companies also involved the Libyan minister of Economy, Mustafa Abu Fannas, and the minister of Oil, Abdel Alroussi. According to the Brazilian representative, Libya “is interested in partnerships for agriculture, tourism, training to young people, culture, and sports.” “The minister of Sports [Adbul Salam Ghoela] asked us to bring a Brazilian football team over so we can start our work together,” he says.
Mussi says he will submit a report on his trip to Brazil’s president Dilma Rousseff, in which he will discuss offering aid to Libya by means of technicians from the Brazilian Agricultural Research Corporation (Embrapa) and the Brazilian Tourism Institute (Embratur). “They need to exchange experiences,” he says.
The representative explains that the Brazil-Libya Parliamentary Association was created during the term in office of former president Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, but had been deactivated. Through Mussi’s own initiative, the association was re-established last year with more than 200 signatures. Mussi travelled by invitation of the Libyan Parliament.
According to Mussi, the visit was a means for offering Brazil’s support to the political transition which has been underway in Libya since the downfall of Muammar Gaddafi, killed in October 2011.
He explains that late last year, members of the Libyan National Transitional Council visited Rio de Janeiro and Brasília, but this was the first trip of a Brazilian representative to the Arab country since the revolution. Mussi says he will speak to president Dilma so that she will receive Libyan government officials next year.
*Translated by Gabriel Pomerancblum
