Brazil’s agricultural minister Tereza Cristina will visit China, the US, Europe and the UAE officials during 2019 to gain new market openings, as well as improve Brazilian exports for meat products such as poultry.
The minister is also scheduled to visit Japan for the G-20 summit in June this year, which is expected to welcome the 19 largest economies in the world plus the European Union.
Commenting on Brazil’s international agenda for 2019, Cristina said they had already made progress with the likes of Peru and Vietnam, which she described as “important countries” in terms of increasing the bilateral market.
“MAPA received our ambassador in Peru, a market that we will also prospect. Trade is still small, but it is a country that is growing at a rate of 4% to 5% a year,” said Cristina. “There is also Vietnam, which opened doors to Brazil and Indonesia, with whom we are making a rapprochement. They are important countries, besides China and other Asian countries, and we will dedicate ourselves to opening new markets.”
Cristina added that Brazil’s focus on the UAE countries was as a result of Saudi Arabia reducing imports of poultry from Brazil, but explained that the country wanted to strengthen production in its own country.
“In October, [Saudi Arabia] started demanding halal slaughter from Brazil, which is more complicated. Brazil has the largest number of plants in the world for halal cattle slaughter, but for birds, this type of slaughter is more complicated, but we already have some modified plants,” said Cristina.
“They made it clear that they want to reduce imports from Brazil from 600,000 to 400,000 tonnes (t) and currently our licensed plants produce the 400,000 t that they still demand.”
Brazil has made extensive efforts to improve trade relations with major international markets following questions and allegations made over its health and safety issues for its meat for the past two years.
