São Paulo – The government of Brazil should promote from the 18th to the 21st of February a trade delegation to the Middle East. The trip should include 29 companies in the areas of food and beverages, auto parts and household and building products. They are going to participate in business roundtables with Arab companies in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, and Dubai, in the United Arab Emirates. The organizers met on Tuesday (22) at the Arab Brazilian Chamber of Commerce, in São Paulo, to discuss details about the trip.
“Our expectation this year is to consolidate contacts already made and extend our network of distributors to other countries,” said Sérgio Nunes, who is responsible for sales of Amazônia Energy, a company in Belém, in Pará state, which exports assai and other organic mashed fruit, including soursop, cupuassu, acerola and taperebá.
The company has a partner in Kuwait who distributes products in the region under brand Açaí Brazil. Apart from strengthening the assai business, Nunes plans to explore the mashed fruit market for the juice industry. He also plans to have a structure for storage and, thus, to have merchandise ready for delivery.
In the same line, the 100% Grape Juice of Brazil project, which brings together 13 companies that produce grape juice, hopes to consolidate contracts made previously with businessmen from the Middle East.
“We return with good expectations, they (the importers) are interested, but it is a slow process,” stated the project’s advisor for trade promotion, Edgar Sinagaglia Jr., explaining that the group promoted trips to the region last year. The initiative is a partnership by the Brazilian Institute of Wine (Ibravin), the Brazilian Fruit Institute (Ibraf) and the Brazilian Export and Investment Promotion Agency (Apex).
Gilberto Millen, from the eponymous trading company, in Ribeirão Preto, in the interior of São Paulo, also wants to generate closer ties. He exports beverages and food, sweets, chocolate, panettone, juice and products made out of peanut, as well as the company’s own roasted coffee grains.
Especially in Saudi Arabia, the businessman hopes to find market for his coffee among small coffee shops, to be able to sell the product through the Brazilian Postal service’s Exporta Fácil, which allows for the simple shipment of small volumes of products. In the other markets, Millen represents four companies from the areas surrounding Ribeirão. He aims to improve contacts already made.
Return
This is the second time the businessman participates in a government delegation to the Middle East. The first was in February 2012, also to the Emirates and Saudi Arabia. “In the first time we made many contacts, to learn about the market, and we discovered that we needed to have better prepared products in the point of view of packaging, language and certification,” he said. Now he is going to take some material in Arabic. The trader already sells to countries like Lebanon, Palestine, Algeria and Israel.
Amazônia Energy and the 100% Grape Juice of Brazil project also participated in the mission last year, with the group of juice producers also organizing a trip to the region on their own accord. This shows that some Brazilian companies are more persistent in their search for the Arab market. Apart from that, part of the companies to participate in the delegation are going to exhibit at Gulfood, a food-sector fair to take place in Dubai starting on the 21st of February.
The delegation should be led by the minster of Development, Industry and Foreign Trade, Fernando Pimentel, and the presence of the Foreign Trade secretary, Tatiana Lacerda Prazeres, is confirmed. The organisation is under the Apex, an agency connected to the ministry, with support of the Brazilian Foreign Office (Itamaraty), Arab Brazilian Chamber and the National Confederation of Industries (CNI).
On Tuesday, businessmen saw presentations by representatives of organisations, including the CEO at the Arab Brazilian Chamber, Michel Alaby, and of companies to promote business roundtables, including Adnan Zaheer, from Saudi company Marcom, and Bassel Amaneddine, from IFP, from the Emirates, as well as Andréa Narimatsu, sales manager at EmiratesSkycargo, the cargo division of Emirates airline, from Dubai.
*Translated by Mark Ament
