São Paulo – This Tuesday (4th), the Brazilian vice president Michel Temer received in his office the Kuwaiti ambassador to Brazil, Ayadah Alsaidi, and the board of directors of the Arab Brazilian Chamber of Commerce, represented by its president, Marcelo Sallum, and by CEO Michel Alaby. At the meeting, Temer was invited by the Arab diplomat to visit the Gulf country. He also discussed a business mission to Saudi Arabia with the Arab Brazilian Chamber executives.
According to information from the vice president’s office, Alsaidi told Temer that Kuwait plans on investing in infrastructure projects in Brazil via its sovereign fund. The ambassador also said trade and diplomatic relations between Brazil and Kuwait can be Kuwait. According to Alaby, the diplomat and the VP also discussed the possibility of mutual investment promotion and protection, and ways of avoiding double income taxation on income earned by Kuwaiti enterprises operating in Brazil and vice-versa.
Also at the meeting, the ambassador invited Temer to take part in the festivities of the National Kuwait Day, to celebrated on February 26th at the Kuwaiti embassy in Brasília.
Following the meeting with the Kuwaiti ambassador, Temer, Alaby and Sallum discussed organizing a business mission from Brazil to Saudi Arabia. According to Alaby, the visit will be important in trying to end the Saudi embargo on Brazilian beef imports, in place since December 2012, when the Brazilian government announced that an animal bearing the mad cow disease-causing virus died in 2010, even though it did not develop the disease.
During the visit to Saudi, delegates should discuss investment in Brazil, with an emphasis on food security. The mission should comprise Arab Brazilian Chamber delegates, Brazilian government officials, and food and civil construction industry businessmen. The date for the trip has not been set yet, but it should take place in late March, in the first week of April, or in November.
The meeting was also attended by the director of the Brazilian Foreign Ministry’s Middle East Department, Carlos Ceglia, and by ambassador Fred Arruda.
Relations with the Arab world
Since Dilma Rousseff was inaugurated as president, in 2011, vice president Temer has visited Lebanon, in November of that same year, Oman, in April last year, and the United Arab Emirates, also in November, where he paid a visit to the construction site of a plant in Abu Dhabi, owned by Brazil’s food company BRF. On that occasion, Temer also travelled to Dubai.
In Brasília, the Brazilian VP received the Libya’s deputy prime-minister Abdulsalam Al-Mahdi al Qadi, in April last year. Morocco’s Foreign Relations and Cooperation minister Saad Eddine El Othmani visited Temer in September and the Omani minister of Education, Madiha Al Shaibani, met with him in November. In December, Temer, a descendant of Lebanese, was honoured by the Arab ambassadors in Brasília.
*Translated by Gabriel Pomerancblum
