São Paulo – The new Brazilian ambassador in Iraq, Miguel Júnior França Chaves de Magalhães, will arrive in Baghdad next week with the mission of expanding Brazilian exports to the Arab country. “I have as a goal to resume the work that was carried out by my predecessors and expand our trade agenda, currently unfavorable to Brazil”, said the diplomat in an interview to ANBA this Wednesday (5th) after a meeting with directors of the Federation of the Industries of the State of São Paulo (Fiesp), also attended by the CEO of the Arab Brazilian Chamber of Commerce Michel Alaby.
Magalhães, who takes over the post on August 13th, recalls that Brazil had a very intense trade relation with Iraq in the 1970s and 1980s and used to import 70% of the oil it needed from the Middle East country. “We built refineries that would follow Iraqi oil specifications, such as the Paulínia refinery”, said the diplomat. At the time, Brazil exported a wide range of products and services to the Iraqi market. “We exported everything, services, road and railway construction, exported auto”, he said.
The wars and economic sanctions imposed to the country, however, interrupted this relationship. “But with the end of war and with sanctions lifted, Iraq is opening itself to the world again”, said Magalhães, reminding the importance that the country has in the Middle East.
With exports to Iraq, Brazil profited US$ 226 million last year, according to data from the Secretariat of Foreign Trade (Secex), linked to the Ministry of Development, Industry and Foreign Trade (MDIC). The products traded were alloy steel pipes, meat, rice, levelers, machinery, tractors, bulldozers, engines, among others. In the first six months of this year, sales to the Arab country stood at US$ 138 million.
In turn, Iraqis sold to the Brazilian market US$ 1.04 billion last year, mainly oil. In this year’s first semester, however, shipments declined a lot and totaled only US$ 157 million. Almost the majority of exports was oil, by there also shipments of naphtha in 2015, according to Secex’s data.
In a conversation with Fiesp’s leaders, the Iraq ambassador promised to identify the needs of the Iraqi market and transfer this information to Brazilian businessmen. “My job will be to map and identify the needs of the Iraqi market and find here those interested in supplying this market”, said the diplomat to ANBA. He said that Brazil is able to sell food such as sugar and poultry at unbeatable prices, but it’s also possible to work to increase trade in other fronts, such as consumer durables and non-durables. The high-price dollar should favor the placement.
Fiesp’s directors talked about a number of possibilities in the trade with Iraq and will also wait the signals of the new ambassador about local needs. The sectors of agrifood, machinery, defense products and technical school cooperation were discussed. The coordinator of the International Trade and Foreign Relations Department (Derex, in the Portuguese acronym) at Fiesp, Carla Rossetti, suggested the coming of a trade mission with Iraq businessmen to Brazil.
Fiesp’s directors talked about the current moment faced by the São Paulo and Brazilian industries, of cost control against the downturn environment in the domestic market. Because of this, they are not investing in international trade missions and the coming of Iraqi businessmen is seen as a good way to strengthen relations. But there already is some actions planned for the reciprocal visit of ministers to Brazil and Iraq vice versa.
Visits by the ministers of both countries are being planned.
The Brazilian ambassador in Iraq is also willing to develop the relationship of the two countries in other areas such as the culture. “Iraq is the cradle of civilization, the first acknowledged writing, the cuneiform, comes from there”, recalls the diplomat, citing the rich history of more than five millenniums of Iraq and the importance of the archeological sites. “Unfortunately, in the last few years Iraq has been buried by internal and external conflicts that prevented the world to share a little of its cultural richness”, he said, adding that he expects that with the safety issue improving it would be able to have cultural missions in the country.
Magalhães is from the city of Fortaleza, Ceará, and already has 35 years of diplomatic career. He worked in several areas in the sector, from economic and commercial to cultural, technical cooperation and management. Magalhães was the ambassador for three years at São Cristovão e Nevis, in the Caribbean, and his last post was at the National Agency of Petroleum, Natural Gas and Biofuels (ANP). The previous Brazilian ambassador in Iraq was Ánuar Nahes, which left the post just one year ago to take over the Brazilian consulate in Montevideo, Uruguay.
Also attended the meeting with Magalhães at Fiesp Thomaz Zanotto, Derex’s director, Newton Mello and Antonio Bessa, Derex’s associate directors, Casemiro Taleikis, manager of Institutional Relations of Brazil Machinery Solutions, ambassador Rubens Barbosa, president of Fiesp’s Superior Council of Foreign Trade, Sérgio Vaquelli, director of Fiesp’s Defense Industry Department (Comdefesa), José Carlos Carvalho, also Comdefesa’s director, besides their aides. The ambassador also visited the Arab Chamber.
Translated by Sérgio Kakitani
