Above: São Paulo

By the Caribbean Journal staff

Trade between Brazil and the Caribbean Community has significantly increased in recent years, according to Brazil’s new Ambassador to CARICOM, Lineu Pupo De Paula.

Total trade between CARICOM and Brazil was $530,602 in 2003, and was $1.183 million in 2012, according to the envoy.

“In the last decade, the Brazilian Government decided to take a step forward in the direction of a more permanent presence in the Caribbean countries and, in a strong movement, we decided to open resident embassies in all CARICOM countries,” he said. “One of our first consequences was that total trade between Brazil and CARICOM countries tripled in a few years.”

And there are more potential areas of collaboration between the two sides, he said, from the agricultural industry to regional development.

The envoy also said he was committed to “make the voices of the Caribbean countries heard in the discussion of the major topics of the international agenda,” a point CARICOM Secretary General Ambassador Irwin LaRocque emphasized.

“We firmly believe that your country is uniquely positioned to advance the interests of our Region in these and other fora, in particular where we do not have a voice,” he said.