Marina Sarruf*
São Paulo – The secretary general of the Arab Brazilian Chamber of Commerce, Michel Alaby, stated yesterday (06) that the meeting of the Joint Arab-Foreign Chambers of Commerce served to improve relations between organizations like the Council of Saudi Chambers. "Trade in the Arab world starts through friendship," stated Alaby, who participated in the meeting that ended yesterday in Saudi Arabia.
According to him, events like this one, which involved meetings with ministers and other authorities served to open doors to business. "The Arab Brazilian Chamber has an active voice among other Arab Chambers. This makes us proud as it took years of work for us to manage to gain this space," he said.
To Alaby, relations between representatives of Chambers and Arab authorities help simplify, for example, participation in business fairs and the organization of trade missions. Relations in the Arab world are everything," he said.
Yesterday, for example, Alaby discussed with directors of the Jeddah Chamber of Commerce, greater cooperation regarding the exchange of information. He also discussed the work of ANBA. "I believe that it will be very interesting, as we may address their work in Brazil and they, ours in Jeddah," explained Alaby.
According to him, during the meeting at the Jeddah chamber, each one of the representatives of Aran Chambers addressed the activities of their organizations. The Jeddah Chamber employs 300 people and has 34 directors.
Port of Jeddah
Yesterday morning, representatives of Arab Chambers also visited the Port of Jeddah, which is the 10th largest in the world in terms of container movement. Each year, the container throughput there totals around 650,000. "The agility in the port is very large. 60% of the products entering Saudi Arabia go through the port of Jeddah," stated Alaby.
*Translated by Mark Ament
