Rio business leader visits Budapest

The Director of the Center for International Business (CIN) of the Federation of Industries of Rio de Janeiro (FIRJAN), Mr. Amaury Temporal, visited Budapest, from December 14th to 17th, to promote trade and investments opportunities between the state of Rio de Janeiro and Hungary. Last May, FIRJAN received Foreign Minister János Martonyi during his visit to Brazil.

Rio de Janeiro is the second biggest economy in Brazil, after the state of São Paulo. It is the third most populous state and its GDP corresponds approximately to that of countries such as Chile, Portugal, the Czech Republic and Ireland. Rio is experiencing an economic boom mainly due to oil and gas exploration.It is responsible for 80% of the Brazilian production of oil, a position to be enhanced by the new offshore pre-salt discoveries. The headquarters of the Brazilian oil and gas giants Petrobras and OGX, iron ore Vale and Brazilian National Development Bank - BNDES are located in Rio de Janeiro.

Brazil is currently the 10th largest oil producing country and is expected to become one of the first five until 2020, due to the development of technologies and logistics which will enable it to explore these new reserves very deep and far away from the coast. As a consequence of the activities associated with this process of development and exploration, the state of Rio de Janeiro will be one of the world’s largest recipients of investments, both domestic and foreign, in the next 20 years.

The city of Rio de Janeiro, capital of the state, will host, in 2014, the FIFA World Cup and, in 2016, the Olympic and Paralympic Games.  It will also be the venue of the VI World Science Forum in November 2013, the first to take place outside Budapest and in cooperation between the Academies of Science of Hungary and Brazil.

Besides the Academy of Science of Brazil, Rio concentrates some of the outstanding Brazilian academic institutions, laboratories and science and technology centers such as CENPES (Petrobras), INMETRO (standards), National Institute for Pure and Applied Mathematics, the Rezende Nuclear Fuel Factory, the Oswaldo Cruz Foundation (biotechnology) and FINEP (high tech financing).

As a press relsease by the Brazilian Embassy in Budapest states, Amaury Temporal had meetings with representatives of the Hungarian Investment and Trade Agency (HITA) and the Budapest Chamber of Commerce and Industry (BCCI), which resulted in:

1) a proposal of Memorandum of Understanding on bilateral cooperation between FIRJAN and BCCI, similar to the one signed between the Federation of Industries of Sao Paulo (FIESP) and the BCCI in São Paulo, last November. The MoU will enable Hungarian businessmen to count on the logistic support of FIRJAN system in their future activities and businesses in Rio;

2) a seminar to promote business between Brazil (with a focus on Rio de Janeiro) and Hungary will be organized in Budapest, in May 2013, by HITA and BBCI, in collaboration with the Embassy of Brazil and FIRJAN. Its purpose is to create awareness on business opportunities for Hungarian companies, in particular SME’s, as well as on trading goods and services and promoting bilateral investments.

At a luncheon hosted by the Ambassador of Brazil, Sergio Eduardo Moreira Lima, in his residence, Dr. Amaury Temporal met also with the Head of the Department of the Americas, Ambassador Gábor Csába, and with Mr. Áron Littvay-Kovács, of BBCI, among others.

The visit of the Director of the CIN takes place only a few weeks after the successful Bilateral Joint Economic Committee in Brasilia, November 12th and the Brazilian-Hungarian Business Forum in São Paulo, November 14th. It also follows a productive meeting of the delegation headed by State Secretary of Economic Regulation, Mr. Kristóf Szatmáry, in Rio de Janeiro, with BNDES and the signing of a cooperation agreement between the Eximbank of Hungary and BNDES.