{"id":263426,"date":"2019-12-02T15:30:54","date_gmt":"2019-12-02T18:30:54","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/anba.com.br\/?p=263426"},"modified":"2019-12-03T12:36:26","modified_gmt":"2019-12-03T15:36:26","slug":"strategic-brazilian-arab-ties-are-already-in-place-mourao","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/anba.com.br\/en\/strategic-brazilian-arab-ties-are-already-in-place-mourao\/","title":{"rendered":"Strategic Brazilian-Arab ties are already in place: Mour\u00e3o"},"content":{"rendered":"

S\u00e3o Paulo \u2013 Brazil\u2019s vice president Hamilton Mour\u00e3o said this Monday (2) that even though the country already sustains strategic relations with the Arab world, economic ties can increase even further. \u201cI already consider relations to be strategic at this point, because trade in foodstuffs is very solid, and food security is a strategic issue for any country,\u201d he told ANBA and TV Brasil in an interview while visiting the Arab Brazilian Chamber of Commerce<\/a><\/strong> in S\u00e3o Paulo, where he attended a luncheon event in his honor.<\/p>\n

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Mour\u00e3o: \u2018Arab countries are an extremely important market to our country\u2019<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

While standing next to Arab Chamber president Rubens Hannun, Mour\u00e3o stressed that Brazil can make use of the food industry\u2019s connections in the region to branch out into other fields. \u201cBrazil has an amazing capacity to produce food and get it to the tables of other people around the world, world-class food products, and to me this is a wide avenue that we can make progress in,\u201d he said. \u201cAt the same time, our trade is moving into other higher value-added products,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Exports from Brazil to Arab countries grossed USD 10.34 billion year-to-date through October 2019, up 10.7% from a year ago, according to Arab Brazilian Chamber data. Food and beverages accounted for USD 6.4 billion, or 62% of that amount. However, sales increased significantly for items including iron and steel pipes, semi-finished gold products, and aircraft turbines and parts.<\/p>\n

The vice president said the Arab Chamber is supporting Brazil\u2019s government in promoting relations with Arab countries since its inception in 1952. \u201cArab countries are an extremely important market to our country, and we are making more and more progress in our relations,\u201d he said. \u201cAnd here in Brazil we have a large number of Brazilian descendants of Arabs, and the Chamber of Commerce also works to enhance this connection, so I find what these people here (at the Chamber) do is admirable in terms of connecting our peoples,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

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

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Mour\u00e3o met with Arab Chamber board<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Apart from the enhancement of trade, Mour\u00e3o believes that Brazil could attract more investment from Arab countries, and that it should seek out partnerships in technology. \u201cArab investment funds boast a wide range of resources, so we could pull them into investing here in Brazil, because now, more than ever, we need private partners in infrastructure-related fields, like road, railway, port and airport concessions,\u201d he said, \u201cand it is evident that we must seek bigger partnerships in technology products.\u201d<\/p>\n

During president Jair Bolsonaro\u2019s late October tour of Arab countries in the Gulf, Saudi Arabia\u2019s Public Investment Fund (PIF) announced that it intends to invest as much as USD 10 billion in Brazil<\/a>. In the United Arab Emirates, agreements were reached to \u201cbring bilateral relations to strategic partnership status<\/a>,\u201d covering economic cooperation, investment, industry, infrastructure, transportation, the space industry, energy, etc.<\/p>\n

The vice president also said both Brazil and the Arab countries are interested in having direct shipping lanes to streamline deal-making. \u201cThere is this demand for direct shipping, with ships sailing off with goods from Brazil and sailing back in with Arab goods, and I think that in terms of trade, this is what we need to envision going forward,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Aside from economic affairs, Mour\u00e3o believes Brazil could be helpful in Middle East peace talks<\/a>.\u00a0\u201cI find that Brazil, being a peaceful country in nature, can and should cooperate and take part in the Middle East peace process,\u201d he said. He mentioned the prominence of Arab peoples in world history. \u201cArab culture is widespread in many places around the world, and it is important for everyone to understand this,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Rapport-building<\/strong><\/p>\n

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Vice president toured the Chamber’s facilities<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Before lunch, the vice president sat down with the Arab Chamber board. Hannun discussed this year\u2019s exports from Brazil to the Arab countries, and like Mour\u00e3o, he stressed the hike in non-food product sales. This growth was driven by diversification and the sale of higher value-added items,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Hannun recalled the first time the Chamber\u2019s board and the vice president had a meeting, during the transition between administrations last year<\/a>, and pointed out that Brazilian-Arab relations have evolved since then. \u201cWe feel a closer rapport between our government and the Arab countries, which came into fruition in several very important visits by top-tier government officials to some of the 22 [Arab] countries.\u201d Apart from Bolsonaro\u2019s tour, he mentioned Mour\u00e3o\u2019s own trip to Lebanon<\/a> and the mission led by Brazil\u2019s Agriculture minister Tereza Cristina<\/a> to Egypt, the UAE, Kuwait and Saudi Arabia.<\/p>\n

\u201cRelations between our countries are evolving into strategic partnership status, which is something the Arabs look forward to, and which is very productive and advantageous to our countries,\u201d the Arab Chamber\u2019s president said. \u201cThrough real partnerships we can be sure that we will offload our products, get funding for our logistics infrastructure, and get key ingredients for our industry, our daily lives and our farm products \u2013 like oil and fertilizers, for instance,\u201d he went on.<\/p>\n

Hannun also invited the vice president to speak at the logistics forum that the organization will hold with the Union of the Arab Chambers in Alexandria, Egypt. \u201cSurely your excellency\u2019s presence and lecture will provide an even bigger thrust to our relations, as well as reinforce the Brazilian government\u2019s positive overtures to this market,\u201d he concluded.<\/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":"

While visiting the Arab Brazilian Chamber of Commerce, the vice president of Brazil underscored the strong trade in food products, and said deals are moving into higher value-added goods.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1454,"featured_media":263453,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","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":[9859,4639,10440,9672,12314],"class_list":{"0":"post-263426","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-foreign-affairs","8":"tag-arab-chamber-en","9":"tag-camara-arabe-en","10":"tag-hamilton-mourao-en","11":"tag-rubens-hannun-en","12":"tag-rubens-hannun-en-2"},"wps_subtitle":"While visiting the Arab Brazilian Chamber of Commerce, the vice president of Brazil underscored the strong trade in food products, and said deals are moving into higher value-added goods.","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/anba.com.br\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/263426","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=263426"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/anba.com.br\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/263426\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/anba.com.br\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/263453"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/anba.com.br\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=263426"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/anba.com.br\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=263426"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/anba.com.br\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=263426"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}