Bilateral trade between Romania and Brazil has fluctuated around 700-750 million dollars in recent years, with Brazil being Romania's main trade partner in South America, the Brazilian ambassador to Romania, Ricardo Guerra de Araujo said on Wednesday.
"Bilateral trade has fluctuated around the value of 700-750 million dollars in recent years, a figure obtained from Brazilian sources, Brazil being Romania's main trading partner in South America. This number, of course, does not yet reflect the entire potential of Brazilian-Romanian trade relations. Just to give you an idea, the total trade between Romania and Latin America is about 1.5 billion dollars, which is still very, very low," said Ricardo Guerra de Araujo.
He participated in the first "Romania-Brazil Business Forum" on Wednesday, organized by the Brazilian Embassy in Bucharest, in partnership with the Bucharest Chamber of Commerce and Industry (CCIB).
The diplomat emphasized that Brazil is the largest country in South America, and Romania is among the top ten countries in the European Union in terms of size and population and is the 12th largest economy in the EU. However, according to the National Institute of Statistics, Romania's trade with Brazil in 2023 represented only 1.65% of Romania's trade with countries outside Europe and less than 1% of trade with countries outside the European Union, the Brazilian ambassador mentioned.
He specified that Romania imports raw materials and semi-finished products from Brazil, especially soybean residues (used as animal feed), sugar, crude oil, coffee, tobacco, beef and construction materials.
In this context, the Brazilian ambassador emphasized that the first trains from a contract of 13 trains for Bucharest metro arrive in Romania this year.
As to investments, the diplomat mentioned the presence on the Romanian market, since 2010, of one of the largest Brazilian IT companies, the Stefanini Group. In addition, on the local market there are around 70 small companies managed mainly by members of the Brazilian community in Romania in various fields, such as IT, trade, construction, building materials, consulting, car repair, fitness, real estate, bars, restaurants.
For its part, Romania has a strong presence in the Brazilian IT sector, through the internationally known software company Bitdefender, among others. Also, said Ricardo Guerra de Araujo, there are also significant Romanian investments in the beverage sector, such as the Alexandrion Group.
The diplomat also referred to fields of cooperation in which Romania and Brazil are well-known for their expertise, such as information technology, cyber security and related fields, as well as biodiesel or food processing.
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