Agência Brasil*
Brasília – Next week, the Brazilian president Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva will travel to Africa, where he will visit four countries: Burkina Faso, the Republic of Congo, South Africa, and Angola. Besides becoming closer in cultural and political terms, Brazil is interested in strengthening economic and commercial ties with the African countries, especially in the fields of energy and mining.
"Other areas are starting to be identified. There is an increasingly frequent trade of small Brazilian industries, such as in the textile field. We firmly believe that it [the African continent] has a strong potential for expanding, and we will invest for this to come true," said the ambassador Roberto Jaguaribe Gomes de Mattos, political undersecretary general at the Brazilian Ministry of Foreign Relations.
Biofuels are also on the agenda of subjects to be discussed during the trip. According to the ambassador, president Lula considers Africa to be one of the regions that can expand the most through renewable energy. "Congo is an important producer of oil, it has potential to produce even more. There is much interest, as in all African countries, including Burkina Faso, in the Brazilian initiatives in the field of biofuels," he stated.
Bilateral trade between Brazil and Angola increased from US$ 520 million, in 2005, to US$ 1.3 billion in 2006. With South Africa, the sum of Brazilian exports and imports totalled almost US$ 1.9 billion in 2006.
The ambassador highlighted the fact that, in addition to economic and commercial reasons, the visit is also due to the fact that the Brazilian government wants to establish communication channels with Southern countries. "Relations with Europe, the United States, and South America are all crucial. But there are well established, free-flowing channels already established for them. With Africa, we are still opening new pathways," he stated.
In South Africa, president Lula will participate next Wednesday (17th), in the 2nd Summit of the India-Brazil-South Africa (IBSA) Dialogue Forum, along with the South African president, Thabo Mbeki, and the Indian prime minister, Manmohan Singh. The ambassador Jaguaribe said that, during the summit, issues such as the Doha round and the United Nations Security Council (UNSC) reform should be discussed. "These are priorities in the interest of all three countries," he claimed.
Together with Germany and Japan, Brazil and India comprise the G4 – a group that calls for an increase in the number of permanent seats in the UNSC Security Council. In the World Trade Organisation (WTO), Brazil and India are members of the so-called G6, alongside the United States, the European Union, Australia and Japan. Also leaders at the G20, Brazil and India defend the agricultural interests of developing countries within the realm of the WTO.
The IBSA was established in 2003, with the objective of seeking closer ties between Brazil, India, and South Africa in the discussion of subjects such as trade and investment, science and technology, energy, transport, and information society. The 1st Summit of the Dialogue Forum, occurred in September last year, in the Brazilian capital Brasília.
According to the director at the Department for Africa at the Brazilian Ministry of Foreign Trade, Fernando Simas, this will be the seventh trip of president Lula to Africa since he assumed the presidency, in 2003, thus totalling 19 African countries visited, including Arab countries Egypt, Libya, and Algeria. Of the countries to be visited, Burkina Faso and the Republic of Congo are the only ones in the continent that president Lula had not visited yet. A group of businessmen will accompany the president throughout the entire trip.
*Translated by Gabriel Pomerancblum
