Raul Papaleo, president of the Brazil-Canada Chamber of Commerce in Toronto:
“Prime Minister Harper’s visit was clearly a milestone in the Canada–Brazil trade and investment relationship.
Harper spent the first day in Brasília meeting President Dilma Rousseff and signed four important agreements. The most important for immediate trade and investment activities were the following:
1) The memorandum of understanding on Olympic cooperation provides a framework for a wide range of collaboration and sharing of best practices, leveraging Canada’s experience from the 2010 Winter Olympics. Canadian companies (particularly in the infrastructure sector) may benefit from contracts in Brazil related to the upcoming World Cup and Summer Olympics.
2) An updated Open Skies-type agreement has been negotiated which will help promote two-way tourism, facilitate business travel and student exchanges. The new agreement provides the legal rights for the airlines of both countries to operate scheduled air services as frequently as desired to any city in the other country, and to carry traffic between countries and to countries beyond.
3) The creation of a Canada-Brazil CEO forum was announced as a means to provide a platform for business leaders to contribute to building robust trade and investment ties. The forum will consist of six to eight members who will be determined by the co-chairs, the CEOs of Vale and Scotiabank. Prime Minister Harper also met with businessmen on Aug. 9 in São Paulo, where he reinforced the notion that Brazil is a major global economic player and Canada’s 10th largest trading partner. Everybody understands that Brazil and Canada are similar in terms of geographical extension and GDP, and both are multicultural societies with significant natural resources. While those similarities could represent competition, they are increasingly becoming the motivation for collaboration. After Harper’s visit, it is quite evident that the major entrepreneurs from both countries are now looking first for partnership opportunities instead of competition, and are looking to grow trade from the current $6 billion per year, which is small in comparison to GDP, to something very significant. It presents a major challenge, but it is the kind that people are motivated to overcome.”
