|
In 2002, Santa Cláudia Bebidas e Concentrados da Amazônia, based in the city of Manaus (capital of the Northern Brazilian state of Amazonas), participated in Algiers International Fair, and brought in their luggage 10 commercial contracts.
At the time, only one sale was closed. Now, the company, which already exports to the Caribbean, Cyprus, and Greece, wants to return to investing in the Arab countries located in North Africa.
According to company foreign trade manager Igor Menezes, in 2005, Santa Cláudia intends to return to trading with Algeria and with the remaining countries in the region.
"We have great interest in the Arab market," he said, adding that the company uses the service of trading companies.
The choice of Algeria as a way for company products to enter the Arab market was not a coincidence, as it is the second largest market in Africa, losing only to Sudan, and is bathed by the Mediterranean.
The company cash cow on the foreign market is guaraná concentrate, made out of guaraná extract and natural fruit scent, which is used in the production of soft drinks.
Guaraná is a fruit of the Amazon region out of which a very popular Brazilian soft drink is made.
Menezes explains that each liter of concentrate makes 850 litres of the drink.
"It seems like an excessively large number, but it is true," he said.
This means that the product has an extremely low cost for drink producers. According to the executive, the price of the concentrate is only a very small fraction of the cost of the final drink.
With a capacity for production of 5,000 liters of concentrate every month, the factory has 274 direct employees and 158 third party service providers.
Santa Cláudia also acts in the sector of mineral water, soft drinks, energy drinks, and juice.
So as to trade its products on the domestic market, the company has 18,000 points of sale in the Northern region of the country.
"In the state of Amazonas alone, there are 15,000 points of sale," explained the manager.
Greater Trade
Nowadays Santa Clara export represents less than 10% of company yearly revenues, around US$ 2.1 million.
In 2005, the factory hopes to increase its foreign trade by between 20% and 25%."
During our participation in Amazon International Fair we made 32 new contacts that should generate US$ 100,000 in business in the first half of next year," declared Menezes.
The 2nd Amazon International Fair (Fiam), an event promoted by the Federal Government to announce the Economic potential of the Brazilian Amazon, took place between September 15 and 18, in Manaus.
Contact
Santa Cláudia
Telephone: (+55 92) 2101-8213
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.