President Lula takes part in Portugal-Brazil Business Forum

President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva takes part today (24) in the Portugal-Brazil Business Forum: Partnerships for Innovation. The event begins at 10 AM (local time) in Matosinhos, in the region of Porto, Portugal. Lula will be received by the Portuguese Prime Minister, António Costa. Also present will be Brazil’s Minister of Science, Technology & Innovation, Luciana Santos, and the President of Embraer, Francisco Gomes Neto. The activities will be attended by around 200 businesspersons – half of them from Brazil and the other half from Portugal – for a business seminar, networking rounds and technical visits.

On Saturday (22), after meeting with the President of Portugal Marcelo Rebelo in Lisbon, Lula set the tone for the importance of strengthening ties between Brazilian and Portuguese businesspersons to enhance trade relations between the two nations.

“We’ve got extraordinary potential to double the flow of foreign trade between our countries. We can be bolder – and allow our businesspersons and ministers to talk to each other more. To discuss future prospects for funding our industries and products. The role of a ruler is to open doors, but businesspersons are the ones who know how to do business – and who have the competence to do so,” said Lula.

Held at Portugal’s Engineering and Development Center (Centro de Engenharia e Desenvolvimento/CEiiA), the Forum will also be attended by the Brazilian Trade and Investment Promotion Agency (Agência Brasileira de Promoção de Exportações e Investimentos/ApexBrasil), co-organizer of the event. At the opening, Apex president Jorge Viana will address the participants, who represent innovation in fields such as energy transition, health, mobility, and startups. A Memorandum of Understanding will be signed between Apex and the Portugal Global – Trade & Investment Agency (Agência para o Investimento e Comércio Externo de Portugal/AICEP).

The seminar, made up of four panels referring to the fields mentioned above, will address ways of attracting bilateral investment and discuss the potential to be explored by both countries. After the seminar, the businesspersons will take part in networking rounds. Next, technical visits will be made to technological development centers and to a Portuguese company in the field of mobility for smart cities.

KC-390 – Embraer is one of the highlights of Brazil’s presence at the Forum. The Embraer KC-390 aircraft project, later incorporated into the Portuguese Air Force, involved work by the Engineering and Development Center – a new paradigm between the two countries in the field of business cooperation.

Investments made by Embraer in Portugal, in OGMA (Portuguese Aeronautics Industry/Indústria Aeronáutica de Portugal) and in two factories in the industrial park of Évora, have reached USD 500 million – generating around 2,500 direct jobs and 7 thousand indirect jobs, as well as technological cooperation in a strategic field. A contract between Embraer and the Portuguese government provides for the delivery of five KC-390 aircraft to the Portuguese Air Force: one a year, as of 2023, at the total cost of EUR 872 million.

At the Forum, Embraer representatives will present urban innovations such as the flying car project, as well as the company’s commitment to decarbonization and energy transition and to topics such as urban and regional mobility.

In the field of health, the Forum will include the participation of Fiocruz, which worked closely with Portuguese institutions during the pandemic, and signed new cooperation agreements on Saturday during the Brazil – Portugal Summit, which resulted in a total 13 cooperation agreements. Banco do Brasil, which is also part of the event, will highlight investments in new energy sources, emphasizing wind energy and green hydrogen – two fields in which Brazil shows enormous potential.