The Portuguese company Axentel, acting with telecommunication services and foodstuff exports, is studying the possibility of opening a sugar and alcohol plant in Brazil. The aim is to produce sugar to be exported exclusively to the Arab countries.
Global Guiders, consulting and trading company from Rio de Janeiro directed to the Arab market, is advising the Portuguese Manoel Vaz Pinto, proprietor of Axentel, in the project.
Representatives from Global Guiders and from Axentel will be in Syria in the beginning of September, during the Damascus International Fair, with the aim of finding clients for the factory.
They have a series of scheduled meetings with Syrian importers who will sign purchase intentions contracts for sugar. The exhibit will take place between the 3rd and 12th September at the capital city of the Arab country.
“If we guarantee the outlet, we will invest,” said the Portuguese businessman, by telephone. The project will demand between US$ 15 million and US$ 45 million, according to Manoel Vaz Pinto. He will be in Brazil this week to see the possible places to install the plant.
As well as the city of Ivinhema, in the midwestern Brazilian state of Mato Grosso do Sul, he will also visit the interior of the state of São Paulo and Rio de Janeiro (both in the Southeast region). The journey, however, is yet to be confirmed.
The Portuguese entrepreneur states the need the Arab market has for sugar was one of the factors that motivated the project. “In the visit we made to the Arab countries last year we felt the anxiety to import sugar,” he states. Axentel also participated at the Damascus International Fair in 2004.
Part of the capital invested in the factory will be from the Portuguese company, the other part will be financed by banks from Portugal. Axentel renders communication services to Portugal Telecom, in Portugal, and for Vivo, mobile phone operator in Brazil.
The company also works with kitchen oil and olive oil exports. Manoel Vaz Pinto states that there is the possibility of building two mills instead of one. The companies are set to start operating within two years after the beginning of construction.
In Syria
Global Guiders was founded about two and a half years ago and works exclusively with the Arab market, especially Syria. The company exports regularly products from about ten Brazilian companies.
At the Damascus exhibit, as well as sugar, the trading company will also show local importers leather, green coffee, natural guaraná, concentrated juice, soy, heart of palm and poultry.
The company will be part of the stand organized by the Arab Brazilian Chamber of Commerce (CCAB). This will be the second participation by the company from Rio de Janeiro at the Damascus fair.
According to one of the partners at Global Guiders, Crebil Ferman, last year’s show was very important to drive Global Guiders businesses, which at the time, were starting.
“We didn’t get to make sales at the fair last year, but we made many contacts and today we have friendships and trade ties that started there. Global Guiders wouldn’t have any international projection if it weren’t for last year’s fair,” he says.
During the first semester of the year, Global Guiders set a partnership with the trading company Rimco International, from Damascus, which now is after markets for Global Guiders’ products in the Arab world.
Representatives from Rimco visited Brazil in May, soon after the summit for South American and Arab countries, to see up closer the sugar mills, as well as coffee and leather production in the country.
Global Guiders
Telephone: +55 (21) 2220 3519
About the Damascus International Fair
Arab Brazilian Chamber of Commerce (CCAB)
Marketing Department
Tel: +55 (11) 3283-4066
marketing@ccab.org.br
www.ccab.org.br
Anba – www.anba.com.br