|
Brazil's Minister of Foreign Relations, Celso Amorim, announced February 22, during his visit to Qatar, the opening of a Brazilian embassy in Doha, capital of the country.
Amorim transmitted the information to the chancellor and vice prime minister of Qatar, Hamad Bin Jaber Al-Tani, who indicated the inclination of the Arab country to reopen their embassy in Brasília.
Amorim did not disclose a date, but assured that the inauguration will take place shortly.
The installation of the diplomatic headquarters should help strengthen the trade relationship between the two countries. The Brazilian exports to Qatar are increasing, but still have not reached significant values.
Last year, Brazil had revenues of US$ 41.5 million with sales to the country. The increase was of 35.3% in relation to 2003. The Brazilian imports from Qatar are even smaller and stayed at US$ 13,900 last year.
Even though the country has a small population, of about 700,000 people, Qatar has the second largest reserve of natural gas in the world, estimated in 25.5 trillion cubic meters, losing only to Iran.
The country's Gross Domestic Product (GDP) is of US$ 23.6 billion and the per capita income, one of the highest in the world, is of US$ 48,000. The country's economy is based in the oil, gas and gas products industry, which answers to 80% of the export basket.
Qatar is part of the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC), with which the Mercosur, the Common Market of the South, should start negotiating a free trade agreement in May, during the summit for South American and Arab countries, in Brazil.
On Monday, during a meeting in Saudi Arabia, minister Amorim and the secretary general of the GCC, Abdul Rahman Bin Hamad Al-Attiyad, committed to work so that a framework agreement, which gives start to the negotiations, be signed during the summit.
Oman
The Brazilian chancellor also visited the city of Muscat, capital of Oman, where he met with the prince Sayyd Bin Tareq Bin Teimur Al-Said, representative of the sultan. In the meeting, Amorim delivered to the prince a letter from President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva with an invitation for the sultan to participate in the summit.
They also spoke of the trade agreement between the Mercosur and the GCC, of which Oman is also a member, and the bilateral ties. The prince suggested, according to information from the Itamaraty, that Brazil and Oman formed committees for the development of partnerships in sectors such as tourism, culture, economy and trade.
The reform in the United Nations (UN) Security Council was also a topic in the meetings Amorim had with the prince of Oman and the chancellor of Qatar.
Both meetings were part of the program of Amorim's journey to nine Arab countries. The journey started on the 17th and ends on the 26th.
Translated by Silvia Lindsey
ANBA – Brazil-Arab News Agency
 |
Subscribe to this comment's feed
Brazil received a huge boost in its international image with its selection as the host of the 2016 Olympics, but it was really just the cherry on top of the overall recognition of the country's ascension to the ranks of one of the world's most important countries. Now, as it finally takes its place on the world scene, there has been a great deal of concern about what kind of image Brazil hopes to project, now that the world is really paying attention. 
The only good thing to say about the visit to Brazil of Iran's president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, on Monday November 23, is that it was mercifully short and lasted less than 24 hours. Ahmadinejad had his picture taken being hugged by president Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva who gave him a warm welcome and said Iran had every right to develop nuclear energy for peaceful purposes. 
The small, coastal town of Condé is located just a twenty minute's drive from João Pessoa, the capital of Paraíba. The Northeast of Brazil has historically been a place of encounter and mixing between peoples. For millenia groups of indigenous people fished, farmed, migrated and sometimes fought along this large, fertile area. 
The Brazilian diplo-MÁ-cia (bad diplomacy) carries on its accelerated course towards the non-acknowledgment of human rights, although sometimes it takes pleasure in saying that it does precisely the opposite. The visit of Iran's president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, is another example of a diplomatic omission that verges on hypocrisy. 
On July 4, 2006, representatives of Argentina, Brazil, Paraguay and Uruguay met in Caracas to sign the protocol for the entrance of Venezuela into the Southern Common Market (Mercosur). After two and a half years, the protocol was approved by the legislative bodies of Argentina and Uruguay, and as of now it may be only days away from being ratified by the continent's economic megalith, Brazil. 
Some sectors of the fight against AIDS have suggested that Thabo Mbeki, the former president of South Africa, committed genocide through his absence from the fight against the illness in his country throughout his two terms. 
One hundred and eleven years after Brazil abolished slavery, the number of workers deprived of their freedom is still huge. They raise cattle, produce charcoal, sugar cane or timber. Some of them, most undocumented Bolivians, work in basements of small apparel factories in São Paulo and other metropolis. 
On November 7, 2009 a few friends and I had an opportunity to take a look inside a Brazilian jail outside the city of Rio de Janeiro. We were able to take some amateur footage of our experience on video (see link below). It's no surprise, of course, that the typical Brazilian jail lacks some of the functionality of those in North America or Europe, but our experience that day was quite shocking. 
Depletion of the Amazon Rainforest is not a new concern facing environmentalists, biologists, ecologists, and a growing number of the Amazonian indigenous peoples. For decades they have feared for the fate of the world's most biologically diverse and species-rich hothouse. 
Geisy Arruda made history this week in Brazil, but for all the wrong reasons. What began as a poorly planned fashion statement has become a worldwide tale. Geisy decided to wear a pink mini-dress to her private college in São Paulo state, and after that, all hell broke loose.
Agradecida
Ivone