Isaura Daniel*
São Paulo – Qatar has started becoming more prominent in the Brazilian trade balance with the Arab world. Brazilian exports to the Gulf country grew 189% between January and November this year. Brazil had revenues of US$ 38 million with sales to Qatar in the first eleven months of 2004. In the same period this year, exports have reached US$ 110.3 million.
The increase in sales of products like cattle beef, iron ore and vehicles were influential for these figures. This year, Qatar purchased 514 Mercedes Benz Brazil buses. The vehicles, with Mercedes-Benz chassis and Comil bodies, were purchased by Mowasalat, one of the largest public transportation operators in the country. They started being used for school transport this year.
Next year, according to information supplied by Mercedes-Benz, vehicles of the kind will also start being used for public transportation. Up to the middle of this year, Qatar did not have a public transportation system. People could only move around the city using their own cars or taxis, according to the Brazilian ambassador in Doha, Sergio Caldas Mercador Abi-Sad. Buses were used only for the transportation of company employees.
The Brazilian ambassador in Doha recalls that sales of iron ore also collaborated to an increase in exports. Brazil sold, between January and October this year, US$ 20.1 million in iron ore to Qatar, against US$ 6.2 million in the same period in 2004. "And the growth of exports of iron ore should be even greater in 2006," said Abi-Sad.
Brazilian mining company Samarco closed, at the end of 2004, a contract with Qatar Steel Company (Qasco), the Qatari state-owned ironworks, for the supply of 1.7 million tonnes of iron pellets up to 2010.
2006
The ambassador believes that next year Brazilian exports to Qatar should reach US$ 200 million. The Brazilian embassy in Doha was opened in the first half of this year and has been working on spreading news about business opportunities between Brazil and Qatar. "We are stimulating business," stated Abi-Sad. The ambassador believes that if there were greater publicity of trade and investment opportunities between both countries, business could grow even further.
Qatar is in full expansion of its infrastructure and has been making heavy investment in the civil construction sector, making it a potential market both for producers of construction material and for Brazilian construction companies. "There are so many works in progress that civil construction companies in Qatar are taking no more new orders," stated the ambassador.
In the month of September, two Brazilian companies in the construction sector, one being Emigran Granites, from the southeastern Brazilian state of São Paulo, participated in Project Qatar, an international construction technology, equipment and material and environment preservation fair that took place in Doha. According to the ambassador, they sold the equivalent to US$ 400,000 at the fair.
Gas source
Qatar is a potential importer and should increase domestic consumption in years to come. The country spends around US$ 13.15 billion with imports every year and has growing income due to investment in the natural gas sector.
Up to 2012, Qatar is going to invest US$ 70 billion in the energy sector, US$ 15 billion in tourism and US$ 36 billion in infrastructure works. The per capita income in the country, currently at around US$ 40,000, should reach US$ 68,000 by 2010.
*Translated by Mark Ament
