DUBAI: The Dubai Chamber of Commerce and Industry (DCCI) is looking to work more closely with Brazil and to bring Brazilian executives to the Global Business Forum on Latin America (GBF Latin America) next February in Dubai, the United Arab Emirates. The DCCI’s International Offices director, Omar Abdulaziz Khan, discussed the subject with C-suite executives at the Arab Brazilian Chamber of Commerce this Monday (18) in São Paulo. Khan was welcomed by the Arab Chamber’s president Rubens Hannun, CEO Michel Alaby, International Relations vice presidente Osmar Chohfi and Market Intelligence and Commercial departments director Tamer Mansour. The DCCI executive called upon the Chamber to bring a Brazilian delegation to the forum next year – a 1,000 people are expected to attend, most of them CEOs. GBF Latin America is designed to identify the drivers of growth in Latin America and to find global and regional allies and opportunities for Latin American companies in Dubai and the Middle East that can support their growth. The forum’s organizers believe governments and businesses across Latin America are rethinking their strategies, redefining their role in the global economy, streamlining the private sector and exploring new markets. This view of constantly and rapidly changing economies around the world is in line with the DCCI’s strategy of setting up offices in several countries, so it can find out more about different parts of the world and keep track of local events. The DCCI opened an office in São Paulo last April. In an interview with ANBA, Khan mentioned that the DCCI’s ties with the Arab Brazilian Chamber go back a long way, and that the Arab Brazilian Chamber said the DCCI should come to Brazil. “We feel that not enough is known about many of the different regions in the world, including Brazil,” he said, stressing the importance of witnessing the changes going on around the world firsthand: “you touch it, feel it, smell it: the culture, the city, the tourist attractions, the factories.” According to Khan, through interaction with partners in Brazil like the Arab Chamber and the Federation of Industries of the State of São Paulo (FIESP), the DCCI is getting a “three-dimensional” picture of Brazil. He claims one of the most important capitals a chamber can have is trust, and that the DCCI has the trust of its 210,000 members. “And we trust and work with the Arab Brazilian Chamber of Commerce,” he says. “We have high-level objectives to connect the businesses, but we are trusted and very economically neutral,” Khan said regarding the two chambers.
The DCCI will outline the actions in may carry out with the Arab Brazilian Chamber next month – it plans out the actions of its offices worldwide every October. The Dubai-based organization has four offices in Africa, one in Russia, one in Azerbaijan, one in Iraq, one in China and one in Brazil. Through its São Paulo base, the Dubai Chamber intends to bring Emirati executives to Brazil and take Brazilian ones to the UAE. “We will join our partners to maybe have roundtables, networking, sector-focused events to gather information and then share it,” he said. The executive also mentioned how Dubai and Brazil complement each other. “Dubai, for example, we don’t have rain, we don’t have oil, we don’t have agriculture – very little, very difficult; we have heat, humidity, but we have logistics, we have infrastructure, we have real estate,” he said. The emirate is more and more interested in manufacturing, according to him. Khan also pointed out that Dubai can be a channel for Brazilian product to reach different locations. Khan paid a visit to the Arab Brazilian Chamber headquarters alongside the head of the DCCI’s International Office in Brazil, João Paulo Paixão.
