Bearing the theme Towards a Resilient Future, the fourth edition of the Global Business Forum Latin America (GBF LATAM 2022) was held on March 23-24 under the patronage of Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum, the Vice President and Prime Minister of the UAE and Ruler of Dubai, showcasing Dubai’s position as a global gateway for companies from Latin America and the Caribbean region.
The GBF LATAM 2022 event was inaugurated on the side-lines of Expo 2020 Dubai by Sheikh Maktoum bin Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum, the Deputy Ruler of Dubai, Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Finance, and was organised by the Dubai Chamber of Commerce in partnership with Expo 2020 Dubai.
The forum – which is part of Dubai Chamber of Commerce’s flagship Global Business Forum series, initially launched in 2013 – showcased investment opportunities emerging markets across the Latin America and the Caribbean, and explored new avenues of economic cooperation.
GBF LATAM 2022 attracted more than 2,000 participants from 95 countries, including in-person and virtual delegates and attendees. Approximately 300 bilateral business meetings were held during the two-day forum.
The delegates taking part in the forum included three heads of state, 13 ministers, government officials, business leaders, and industry experts from Latin America, the Caribbean, and the UAE.
Key markets for foreign trade with Dubai
GBF LATAM 2022 highlighted Latin America as a key market that aims to support Dubai’s ambitions of boosting its foreign trade to $544.5 billion (AED 2 trillion) within five years.
Addressing delegates at the forum, the Chairman of Dubai Chambers, Abdul Aziz Al Ghurair, revealed that exports from Dubai to Latin America and the Caribbean reached $687 million between January and September 2021.
Until now, Dubai has maintained a strong and growing status as a trading partner for the Latin America region. This is a sign that more companies in the UAE are tapping into trade opportunities across Latin America, with a vast majority targeting Brazil, Mexico, Colombia, and Chile.
The forum took this a step further by ushering in a new era of trade between Dubai and the LATAM region.
Al Ghurair said: “This year’s forum comes at a pivotal time as economies around the world look outwards for new global partnerships and opportunities that can drive sustainable growth in the post-Covid era and beyond.
“The 27 countries in the Latin American and Caribbean region offer a wealth of untapped potential as the Pacific Alliance, regional economic integration and reforms, and Covid-led digital acceleration create new growth prospects.”
Al Ghurair added: “Dubai holds the key to unlocking Latin America’s economic potential, as one of the world’s fastest growing city economies that can offer valuable expertise in key sectors such as logistics, infrastructure, retail, tourism and finance, in addition to the right level of investment needed to support the sustainable growth and development of Latin American economies.”
Other key topics and issues discussed during GBF LATAM 2022 included how stakeholders from both regions can capitalise on the opportunities emerging across the LATAM economy, which according to the latest IMF report, grew by 6 percent in real terms in 2021, and is expected to grow further by 4.3 percent between 2021 and 2025.
The event also took a closer look at how Dubai and LATAM can cooperate in the rapidly growing sectors of fintech, digital solutions, renewable energy, healthcare, and food security, all of which have been boosted as a result of the global pandemic.
GBF LATAM 2022 witnessed discussions on how these and other sectors can be key to the economic growth of both regions, while delivering strong returns for investors.
Key quotes from the GBF LATAM 2022 forum
The forum discussed the role that the Dubai Chamber of Commerce’s three international offices in Panama, Brazil, and Argentina are playing to promote commercial opportunities between the Latin America and Caribbean countries and Dubai and the UAE.
The President of Brazil, Jair Bolsonaro, said that there is vast investment potential for UAE businesses in Brazil as the country pushes ahead with new strategic policies and projects.
Addressing delegates virtually at the Global Business Forum Latin America 2022, he invited UAE companies to invest in Brazil and explore the attractive business opportunities that are emerging across a variety of economic sectors.
Bolsonaro said: “We are committed to Brazil’s economic openness, comprising a competitive insertion of our country in the new scenario that will mark the post-pandemic world. After all the challenges of the past two years, which have led us to direct a huge amount of resources to prevent a more severe social and economic downturn, Brazil has resumed the path of economic growth.
“After a contraction of 4.1 percent in 2020 – one of the smallest among all countries affected by the pandemic – our GDP has grown 4.6 percent in 2021.”
Bolsonaro also highlighted that in the last three years, the Brazil government has transferred 131 assets to the private sector, saying that this had the potential to bring about more than $150 billion in investments and around $25 billion in concession fees.
He said: “For these reasons and assurances, we invite you all to invest in Brazil,” he added. “Besides our endeavours for a cautious and sustainable economic recovery, we have been carrying out the largest infrastructure investment programme in our history and one of the largest in the world, the investment partnership programme.”
The President of Brazil added that the programme’s portfolio for 2022 comprises 153 assets, with forecast investments reaching up to $60 billion.
He also highlighted the importance of renewable energy and biofuels to Brazil’s economy, as well as food production – the latter an industry that he indicated was vital to feed the world’s growing population, and then finished his address with an invitation to the audience to visit Brazil.
Meanwhile, food security cooperation, and a commitment to carbon neutrality and environmental sustainability remained a key focus of the forum, bringing to the spotlight the need to boost UAE-Colombia trade.
The President of the Republic of Colombia, Iván Duque Márquez, addressed delegates at GBF LATAM 2022 in a video message, highlighting the economic strides his country had made in recent years.
Márquez said: “In 2021, we reached a record high in non-mining and energy exports. For example, in the agricultural sector, we consolidated our position as a strategic country to assure food security at a global level.
“Today, Colombia is viewed as one of the most important suppliers of food, not only because of our productive potential and value-added, but because of our bet on environmental sustainability and zero carbon emissions by 2050. That is why we are committed, together with the United Arab Emirates, to capitalise opportunities for companies in both countries.”
Discussing the importance of the UAE to his country, the president pointed to the growth of exports from Colombia to the UAE, saying that the furthering of free trade agreements were the essential underpinning of bi-lateral trade. He also added that the Republic of Colombia is committed to ratifying the Air Service Agreement and the double taxation agreement.
Meanwhile, the President of Guyana, Dr Mohamed Irfaan Ali, spoke about the various synergies that exist between his country and the UAE.
Dr Mohamed Irfaan Ali said: “The UAE and Guyana have a lot in common, especially when you look at where the UAE started from, the size of the population, what drove growth and development, notably oil exploration and revenues.
“But what the UAE has really taught us is how to utilise those revenues to diversify the economy, ensure quality of the system, improve government services, and build state-of-the-art infrastructure – and that is what we want to achieve in Guyana. We want to use our oil resources to build an economy that is resilient and well diversified.”
Irfaan Ali added: “We are working with the UAE on several areas, the first of which is infrastructure development. Meanwhile, from a governance perspective, we are collaborating towards efficiency in government systems and technology transfer. We are creating an investment agreement to make it easy for investors in the UAE to invest in Guyana. We want to have government-to-government, but also people-to-people collaboration.”
For his part, the Minister of State for Foreign Trade and the UAE Minister in charge of Talent Attraction and Retention at Ministry of Economy, Dr Thani Al Zeyoudi, highlighted the importance of the LATAM region for Dubai and the UAE.
Dr Thani Al Zeyoudi said: “The UAE is looking to diversify its investments globally and, for us, Latin America is a very important region – we are talking about more than 400 million people. Looking at what has been achieved over the last five years in Latin America, the UAE has dominated most investments from the GCC into the region. At the same time, our trade volume now sits at $9 billion, which shows there is huge potential for trade.
“Latin America is a global source of food products, the continent is going to be one of the solutions to the global food security disturbances, which we saw during the pandemic and we are now seeing once again. Going into the region, we want to encourage the private sector; we cannot go and expand the relationship without the private sector. We want to ensure the investment protection agreements are there and to highlight the opportunities to investors.”
On a whole, the forum presented an integrated picture of the business environment, highlighting joint investment opportunities, bringing investors together, and drawing attention to the pivotal role of Dubai as a gateway for companies wishing to launch their operations and expand into the Latin America and the Caribbean region’s promising markets.
Reflecting on the success of the forum, the President and CEO of Dubai Chambers, Hamad Buamim, concluded: “Today, we are reaping the fruits of the strong relationship that we succeeded in establishing with the Latin markets through our previous edition of GBF LATAM. The forum provided an opportunity to establish new business partnerships and support our efforts to expand the operations of companies in Dubai, as well as attract LATAM investments to the emirate.
“In the fourth edition of the forum, we were able to build many new ties that will shape the future of strategic relations between Dubai, the wider GCC, and the 27 countries that make up Latin America and the Caribbean.”
Follow us on
