AGRO BIOFLORESTAL

From east to west: Brazilian states of Ceará and Rondônia offer business to the Arabs

Even in small cities in Brazil, there are businessmen eying the business potential in the Arab market. The mayor of the city of Quixadá, in the northeastern state of Ceará, wants to attract Arab investments for a pilot project of a slaughterhouse, a workforce training centre, a genetic bank and a technical assistance programme for the local cattle breeders. The businessman Waldecy de Oliveira, from the state of Rondônia, wishes to export guaraná, urucum and Nim Indiano, a tree whose leaves are used to produce natural fungicides.
Isaura Daniel, special envoy*

Brasilia – It is not only in the big capital cities of Brazil that news about the Arab market potential has arrived. In unknown cities, even by the majority of Brazilian population, there are industrialists, farmers and cattle breeders interested in forming partnerships with the businessmen of the Arab world.

In the business meeting that started on Monday (09), in Brasilia, capital city of Brazil, there are a series of them. The mayor of the city of Quixadá, city with 75,000 inhabitants in the northeastern state of Ceará, came to the federal capital with an investment project translated to Arabic with him. The aim is to convince businessmen in the Middle East and North Africa to invest in it.

Ilário Marques plans on transforming the city he manages and the surrounding areas in a sheep and goat breeding hub. The mayor isn’t asking for much. With US$ 2.8 million he believes it is possible to start a pilot project and set up a slaughterhouse, a workforce training centre, a genetic bank and a technical assistance programme for the breeders.

Currently, breeding sheep and goats in the city is done only in a domestic and isolated manner. “We want to organise the productive chain thinking of the Arabs, according to the conditions they demand. They would invest in the production and then the meat would be exported to the Arab countries,” states Marques.

From Rondônia

As Marques, but with less advisory, the businessman Waldecy de Oliveira was also circulating at the Ulysses Guimarães Conventions Centre searching for someone who would believe in his business’ potential.

Oliveira has a farming and breeding company, Agro-Bioflorestal, and produces guarana, urucum and Nim Indiano, a tree whose leaves are used to produce natural fungicides, in the state of Rondônia, in the Northern region of Brazil. Urucum is used to produce dyes. The small agro-industrialist wants to export to the Arabs.

The participation in the summit came after an invitation by the Itamaraty, the Brazilian foreign office. Oliveira, in fact, is part of a group of 230 families who produce 600 tonnes of urucum per year and 100 tonnes of guarana. Each one, like Oliveira, harvest between 50 and 100 hectares. The producers are also part of a Non Governmental Organisation (NGO), Fundação Floresta em Perigo (meaning endangered forest foundation, in a free translation), which looks for alternative sources of income, considering preservation of biodiversity, for the local inhabitants.

Oliveira still doesn’t export directly, but his product arrive in international markets through a multination in the dyes area, Chr Hansen, which is Danish and with an office in Brazil. Other five small and medium sized companies in the internal market buy products from him.

Brave, Oliveira decided to travel to Brasilia after the Arabs even without speaking English. He left cards with the Arab Brazilian Chamber of Commerce (CCAB) and is confident that even if deals aren’t settled now, he will have reached one of his objectives of promoting the project. “But I can make business with the Brazilians I met,” he states.

For being part of the NGO, Oliveira also spoke, in his conversations at the conventions centre, of the potential of the region where he lives, with the objective of attracting possible investors. According to the businessman, there is rice production and cattle breeding in the region, but are missing companies interested in processing and trading the products.

*Translated by Silvia Lindsey

Fonte: http://www2.anba.com.br/noticia/7391622/small-exporters/from-east-to-west-brazilian-states-of-ceara-and-rondonia-offer-business-to-the-arabs/