São Paulo – Registrations are open for Brazilian companies looking to join a mission to Egypt on November 13 and 14. The trip is being worked on by the Brazilian Ministry of Foreign Affairs (Itamaraty) and the Brazilian Trade and Investment Promotion Agency (Apex-Brasil). No deadline has been set yet, but organizers are calling on would-be participants to register as soon as possible. This Tuesday (9), some 50 corporate executives gathered to learn about the details at the Arab Brazilian Chamber of Commerce in São Paulo. The organization is backing the endeavor.
Brazil’s foreign minister Aloysio Nunes is leading the mission. According to the Foreign Ministry’s Trade and Investment Promotion Department Orlando Leite Ribeiro, the focus will be on politics on the 13th and corporate affairs on the 14th. Brazilian and Egyptian authorities, including Nunes and Egypt’s minister of Trade and Industry Amr Nassar will speak during the opening event on the second day.
In the morning of the 14th, discussions will cover aspects of Brazil-Egypt trade, including the business opportunities brought about by the Mercosur-Egypt free trade agreement that went into force late last year. B2B sessions will take place in the afternoon. “The focus will be on fostering exports through business-to-business meetings, but access to local authorities in industry and trade can help sort out hurdles to exports,” said Ribeiro.
Organizers are looking to get players in housing and construction, healthcare, agribusiness, food and beverages, and machinery and equipment to join, since Egypt’s is a prospective market for them. In speaking to would-be mission members at the Arab Chamber, Ribeiro explained the economic reforms underway on the back of an agreement with the International Monetary Fund (IMF) to restructure the economy, including a Value-Added Tax (IVA), fuel subsidy cuts and a gradual loosening of exchange rate policy.
Ribeiro said that Egypt is North Africa’s biggest market, and that it has recently discovered the Zohr oilfield, which should help give the economy a boost. Quoting IMF estimates, he said Egypt should see 5.7% growth per year on average through 2022. “This scenario of recovery and globalization of Egypt’s economy should lead to a rebound in imports and therefore to new business opportunities,” he said.
According to Ribeiro, Brazil is Egypt’s seventh leading supplier of goods, but sales lack variety, with sugar, beef, maize, iron ore and poultry making up 76.3% of sales. “That is why we find it necessary to engage in actions such as this mission,” he said, describing the effort as a driver of diversification and exports of higher value-added goods from Brazil.
Ribeiro said that the Egypt-Mercosur agreement is not yet well-known, with untapped potential. “It’s a very comprehensive agreement, covering 9,800 tariffs (items) and that is still underused,” said the director. That’s why this will be one of the topics of the corporate meeting to be held in Cairo in the mission’s second day. The average tariff applied by Egypt to imports stands at 19.1%, but 26% of all of the products included in the agreement with Mercosur were tagged with zero tariffs when the deal went in to effect.
Apex-Brasil’s Manager of Market Strategy, Sueme Mori Andrade, recalled that Egypt is, traditionally, an import market because it’s not self-sufficient. She presented a market research on some products. From 2013 to 2016, the annual average growth of fresh beef purchases by the country stood at 6.5%, with Brazil’s supply in the sector growing 6.93%. In the case of frozen, cooled and fresh fish, imports by Egypt rose 32.5%, with Brazil’s sales to the country increasing 123.4%.
The Arab Chamber’s vice president of International Affairs Osmar Chohfi opened the event at the Arab Chamber and stated that trade between Brazil and Egypt has been presenting sustainable growth. According to him, trade between the two countries generated USD 1.6 billion from January to September, with the possibility to grow.
The Arab Chamber’s CEO Michel Alaby presented some details on some sectors in Egypt with significant demand, such as the food products field. “Rice and pasta are everyday consumer products across social classes,” he said. Alaby mentioned the fields of healthcare, with good potential due to Egypt’s population growth, and of machinery, boosted by the agricultural sector. “To sell, one has to be on display,” said Alaby to business owners.
Egypt’s trade consul and head of the country’s Economic and Commercial Office in São Paulo, Mohamed Elkhatib, also spoke at the event and invited the entrepreneurs to invest in his country. He said that trade and investments opportunities are currently “unlimited”. The manager of Trade Promotion Department of Brazil’s Ministry of Defense, Leonardo José T. de Gusmão, also spoke at the event.
The mission will also include officials from other departments of the Brazilian government, in addition to those mentioned above, such as the Ministry of Industry, Foreign Trade and Services (MDIC) and the Secretary of State. Registration to companies interested in taking part are open at the Trade Promotion Operations Division of Itamaraty (contacts below), but members of the Arab Chamber can register via the organization.
Contact:
Mission to Egypt
November 13 and 14, 2018
Further information and registrations at DOC/MRE
Phone: 55 61 2030 8529 – 2030 8530
Email: doc@itamaraty.gov.br
Translated by Gabriel Pomerancblum and Sérgio Kakitani
