São Paulo – Brazilian medical and hospital product companies affiliated with the Brazilian Health Devices project should see a 10% to 15% increase in exports to the Arab world in 2013. So says the export manager of the Brazilian Association of the Industry of Medical, Dental, Hospital and Laboratory Articles and Equipment (Abimo), Paula Portugal, who accompanied 39 industry companies to Arab Health, a trade show held in late January in Dubai, United Arab Emirates.
According to Portugal, the project, which is promoted in a partnership with the Brazilian Export and Investment Promotion Agency entos (Apex), involves 150 Brazilian companies, which posted a combined US$ 12.5 million in revenues from sales to the Middle East last year. “Our goal is to keep the growth rate at 10% to 15% in 2013,” says the manager. During the show in Dubai, the companies closed US$ 1.5 million worth of deals, and are expecting to export another U$ 11 million by the end of the year, as a result of contacts made in Dubai.
“I do not see the crisis having an impact in the Middle East,” says the executive regarding an eventual aftermath of the European and American crisis on the region’s medical industry. During Arab Health, 2,400 contacts were made. In addition to Brazil’s participation in the main hall of the show, two Brazilian companies took part in Medlab, a laboratory industry show within Arab Health. Portugal highlights the presence of Iraq as a buyer, which was not usual in past editions.
A buyer from Iraq, by the way, won a raffle promoted by Abimo and Apex over breakfast on the second day of the show. The businessman Yasser Najema got a ticket and lodging to travel to Brazil during the Confederations Cup, due in June this year in the country. The other winner was the physician Inês Bayarassom, from a medicine institute in Dubai. The raffle is sponsored by Apex.
Breakfast was attended by the Brazilian delegation and guest companies, their clients, government organizations, hospitals, and healthcare institutions. It included a talk on the Brazilian medical equipment industry. Paula Portugal said it was a success, and that demand was the highest during the fair for electromedical equipment – such as incubators and scalpels –, as well as orthopaedic implants. The breakfast was a celebration of the 10th anniversary of Brazil’s participation in Arab Health.
*Translated by Gabriel Pomerancblum