The Arab Brazilian Chamber of Commerce (ABCC) has signed a memorandum of understanding (MoU) with the Alexandre de Gusmão Foundation (FUNAG) in Brasília, local reports have said.
The cooperation agreement was signed by ABCC President Osmar Chohfi and FUNAG President Márcia Loureiro, said the reports.
It apparently provides for a collaboration in research, studies, and academic activities in areas of common interest.
These include bilateral relations and diplomatic history, trade and investment, science, technology and innovation, sustainable development, and energy.
The foundation said that these topics will be the subject of symposiums, seminars, and publications in order to increase the mutual knowledge between the Arab countries and Brazil.
That way, they are expected to provide public agents with information that will be useful for policymaking.
According to FUNAG, an exchange of good practices is also planned for enhancing the digital strategies of the foundation and the ABCC.
Chohfi explained that the MoU is a framework agreement that lays down cooperation possibilities and that this partnership with FUNAG will give rise to webinars, seminars, connections between the Arab and Brazilian academic world, co-editions, translations of Arab authors into Portuguese.
These could then be published by FUNAG or Brazilian authors into Arabic to be spread in the Arab League states.
Chohfi said that the multidimensional agreement will reinforce the operations of the ABCC in the cultural area and allow for the institution to get closer to the academic world via a prestigious institution like FUNAG.
“This will give an opportunity for cooperation and a deeper understanding for the ABCC of how it can further the talks on Brazil-Arab relations,” Chohfi said.
“Above all, I believe that in a country like ours, where there’s still little knowledge about the Arab world in political science and international relations, this agreement with FUNAG will allow us to get closer to these entities that think the contemporary world in different aspects,” the ABCC’s president explained.
FUNAG is a think tank affiliated with Brazil’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs that’s focused on developing thoughts in topics related to diplomacy and international relations, from the foreign policy to energy, environment and other topics in the international agenda.
Part of its operations include the dialogue with similar entities in Brazil and elsewhere and publishing books by national and foreign authors.