{"id":195939,"date":"2018-06-15T16:59:29","date_gmt":"2018-06-15T19:59:29","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/anba.com.br\/?p=195939"},"modified":"2019-06-30T17:00:06","modified_gmt":"2019-06-30T20:00:06","slug":"arab-chamber-honors-qatar-ambassador","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/anba.com.br\/en\/arab-chamber-honors-qatar-ambassador\/","title":{"rendered":"Arab Chamber honors Qatar ambassador"},"content":{"rendered":"

S\u00e3o Paulo \u2013 The Arab Brazilian Chamber of Commerce<\/strong> hosted a dinner event on Thursday evening (14) in honor of the ambassador of Qatar to Bras\u00edlia, Mohammed Alhayki (pictured above on the left<\/em>), who\u2019s leaving his post after a stint of nearly six years in Brazil. \u201cThe ambassador did outstanding work in each and every field,\u201d said Arab Chamber president Rubens Hannun (on the right in the picture<\/em>) in addressing the diners.<\/p>\n

\"\"
Hannun: trade improved in quantity and quality<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

As a case in point, he mentioned the advances seen in bilateral trade from 2012, when the diplomat took charge of the embassy, until last year. Exports from Brazil to the Arab country soared by 32.7%.<\/p>\n

\u201cQatar went from being the 11th<\/sup> to being the 6th<\/sup> leading Arab destination\u00a0of exports from Brazil,\u201d Hannun told ANBA. \u201cProduct variety also went up\u00a0significantly, from 244 to 288 items, an 18% increase. There was diversification and an increase in added value,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

On the other hand, Hannun remarked that Qatar moved from 6th<\/sup> to 4th<\/sup> on the list of Arab suppliers of goods to Brazil, and the number of products shipped from Qatar to Brazil increased from 14 to 18. \u201cWe work hard in partnership with you (the Arab Chamber) to achieve these results, and the numbers will keep increasing,\u201d Alhayki told the diners.<\/p>\n

He told ANBA that as of 2020, Qatar will supply 1.4 million tons of liquefied natural gas (LNG) per year to Brazil\u2019s Sergipe state under a 25-year contract. Some of the gas will fuel a thermoelectric central and some will be distributed, according to Alhayki. \u201cThis will have a big impact on Sergipe and nearby states,\u201d the ambassador stressed.<\/p>\n

He said the contract was signed in 2014, during a visit of then-Brazilian president Dilma Rousseff to Qatar. Alhayki said Brazilian authorities have travelled to Qatar on several occasions since 2012, including the ministers of Culture, Sports, Agriculture and Defense\u00a0and members of parliament. \u201cThis brought relations between the two countries to a strategic level,\u201d he asserted.<\/p>\n

According to Alhayki, the visit of Brazil\u2019s Agriculture minister Blairo Maggi to Doha in May of last year \u201censured the continuation of meat exports from Brazil to Qatar, especially poultry.\u201d The trip happened in the wake of the Brazilian Federal Police\u2019s Operation Weak Flesh, a probe into meat packers and Agriculture Ministry inspectors that prompted several countries to ban or threaten to ban imports of product from Brazil.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe ambassador played a crucial role in Qatar\u2019s decision to keep buying,\u201d said Hannun, who travelled alongside Maggi. The Arab Chamber worked hard to prevent Arab countries from halting their imports. It got Arab diplomats, Brazilian government officials and private sector players in touch with one another and encouraged the minister of Agriculture to take trips to Arab countries.<\/p>\n

Investment<\/strong><\/p>\n

Hannun also discussed Qatari investments in Brazil during Alhayki\u2019s stint in the embassy, including the purchase of a 10% stake in airline Latam by Qatar Airways. The ambassador mentioned Qatari investments in Brazil\u2019s mining company Vale, in oil exploration and production, and in agribusiness projects.<\/p>\n

\"\"
Alhayki: Qatari investment in Brazil poised to increase<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The diplomat also said investments will keep happening. According to him, a commission has been formed by officials from Qatari ministries and executives from Qatari funds to look into making additional investments\u00a0in Brazil. \u201cI guarantee that we will increase our investments here,\u201d Alhayki told the dinner guests.<\/p>\n

The ambassador also pointed out that since 2017, Brazilians travelling to Qatar can get visas on arrival at the Doha Airport, and are no longer required to get their visas beforehand. Today we have a big community of Brazilians in Qatar, and we have also witnessed major growth in tourism, particularly after the visas were made easier,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Hannun mentioned Brazilian business missions to Qatar and vice-versa, plus the fact that Qatar was featured in the Arab Chamber stand at the trade show of the S\u00e3o Paulo Supermarkets Association (Apas Show) and in World Travel Market Latin America. The Qatar Development Bank (QDB) played a pivotal role in some of these actions.<\/p>\n

Culture<\/strong><\/p>\n

When it comes to culture, Hannun noted that 2014 was the Year of Qatar in Brazil, with events including an exhibit of pearls from Qatar at Funda\u00e7\u00e3o Armando \u00c1lvares Penteado (FAAP)\u2019s Brazilian Art Museum in S\u00e3o Paulo, featuring rare jewellery; a tribute to Qatar at the Pan-Amazonian Book Fair in Bel\u00e9m do Par\u00e1; and 1001 Inven\u00e7\u00f5es<\/em> (1001 Inventions), a program\u00a0designed to\u00a0showcase technological advances in Muslim countries to Brazilian children.<\/p>\n

\"\"
Alzeben commended his colleague’s role in the Council of Arab Ambassadors<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The Arab Chamber president also said that Casa Catar<\/em> (the Qatar House), a space created by the Qatar Olympic Committee during the Rio Olympics in 2016, won a prize from the Rio de Janeiro Commercial Association in the Cultural Promotion category.<\/p>\n

The dean of the Council of Arab Ambassadors in Brazil, Ibrahim Alzeben, who attended the dinner event, stressed that Alhayki played a prominent role\u00a0in supporting the Palestinian cause and Arab causes in general during his time in Brazil. Alzeben is the ambassador of Palestine to Brazil.<\/p>\n

Alhayki said he will be replaced by diplomat Ahmad Al Abdallah, the current deputy director of the Asia Department at the Qatar Ministry of Foreign Affairs and a former ambassador to India.<\/p>\n

Also attending dinner were the Arab Chamber\u2019s CEO Michel Alaby, vice presidents Osmar Chohfi and Riad Younes, former president Orlando Sarhan and directors S\u00edlvia Antibas, Willian Atui, Mohamed Orra Mourad and Sami Roumieh.<\/p>\n

Translated by Gabriel Pomerancblum<\/strong><\/p>\n

Rodrigo Rodrigues\/Arab Chamber<\/div>\n
Rodrigo Rodrigues\/Arab Chamber<\/div>\n
Rodrigo Rodrigues\/Arab Chamber<\/div>\n
Rodrigo Rodrigues\/Arab Chamber<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Mohammed Alhayki is leaving Brazil after a near-six-year stint, and the organization offered a farewell dinner. Bilateral trade increased and grew more diverse during his tenure.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1454,"featured_media":195921,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[106],"tags":[439,2075,232,34631,536,39480,376,377,554,3288,510,522,1810],"class_list":{"0":"post-195939","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-foreign-affairs","8":"tag-arab-chamber","9":"tag-ambassadors","10":"tag-brazil","11":"tag-diplomacia-en","12":"tag-diplomacy","13":"tag-embaixadores-en","14":"tag-exports","15":"tag-imports","16":"tag-investment","17":"tag-mohammed-alhayki","18":"tag-qatar","19":"tag-rubens-hannun","20":"tag-trade"},"wps_subtitle":"Mohammed Alhayki is leaving Brazil after a near-six-year stint, and the organization offered a farewell dinner. Bilateral trade increased and grew more diverse during his tenure.","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/anba.com.br\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/195939","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/anba.com.br\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/anba.com.br\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/anba.com.br\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1454"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/anba.com.br\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=195939"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/anba.com.br\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/195939\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/anba.com.br\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/195921"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/anba.com.br\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=195939"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/anba.com.br\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=195939"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/anba.com.br\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=195939"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}