São Paulo –Brazil and the United Arab Emirates signed this Tuesday a cooperation agreement in the defense area. The document was signed during Dubai’s emir, vice president and prime minister of the Emirates, Mohammed Bin Rashid Al-Maktoum, visit to Brasilia.
The partnership provides for the two countries to exchange technologies in the sector, cooperate in military instruction and training, in weapons, equipment, crisis management, logistic support, United Nations peace missions and to promote the exchange of military information, among other measures.
The agreement was signed by the United Arab Emirates minister of foreign affairs, Abdullah Bin Zayed Al Nahyan, and Brazilian minister for Defense, Celso Amorim, in the meeting of Maktoum with Brazil’s vice-president, Michel Temer, at the Ministry of External Relations, known as Itamaraty. The meeting also had the participation of minister of External Relations Luiz Alberto Figueiredo Machado. The emir has also met with president Dilma Rousseff at government seat Palácio do Planalto.
This is the first visit Maktoum makes to Latin America. Prior to Brazil, he has also been to Mexico and has already proceeded with his trip to Argentina on this Tuesday, and Chile afterwards.
The Arab Brazilian Chamber of Commerce’s president, Marcelo Sallum, and CEO, Michel Alaby, BRF’s (parent company of the brands Sadia and Perdigão) chairman, Claudio Galeazzi, the company’s director for Corporate Affairs, Marcos Jank, Embraer’s vice executive president of Defense and Safety, Jackson Schneider, defense company Avibras’ president, Sami Hassuani, and the Federation of Muslim Associations of Brazil (Fambras)’s president, Mohamed Hussein El Zoghbi, also took part of the meeting with Temer.
The undersecretary general for Middle East and Africa at the Brazilian Ministry of External Relations, Paulo Cordeiro, and the director for Middle East Department, Carlos Ceglia, were also present at the event.
Double Taxation
According to Alaby, the United Arab Emirates minister of foreign affairs says that companies from both countries should expand mutual investments to increase the presence in both markets. “But he (Nahyan) said that in order for this to happen it is necessary to avoid the double income taxation”, points out Alaby.
Brazil and the Emirates do not have an anti-double taxation agreement to prevent the profit obtained by a company’s branch in another country to be taxed in both.
Alaby claimed that the meeting was “positive”, but there is a need for further talks on how to facilitate visa issuance to Brazilian businessmen traveling on business to the Emirates.
Another agreement that was scheduled to be signed, for cooperation on the development of African agriculture, was not finished in due time. According to the Itamaraty, the negotiations are to continue.
The president of the Dubai Civil Aviation Authority and of Emirates Airline, Ahmed Bin Saeed Al Maktoum, minister of State, Reem Bint Ibrahim Al Hashemi, and the Minister of Cabinet Affairs in the Federal Government of the Arab country, Mohammed Bin Abdullah Al Gargawi, are also part of Maktoum’s delegation.
*Translated by Rodrigo Mendonça
