Since Swedcham took over the Eurocâmaras Chairmanship in June 2016, many things came up, not only to be managed beyond the day-to-day activities but also to be prioritized due to a packed agenda with many events in different locations, both in Brazil and abroad.
The very first event when Swedcham took over was to host a Latam IPR-Helpdesk International Meeting, which was held on September 19 at the Chamber with the presence of Paulo Baldan, Senior Project Advisor from Eurochambres Brussels, and experts from Rio de Janeiro in the legal field of IPR. At the end of September, Swedcham and Eurocâmaras Chairman Nils Grafström together with EBO – EU Chambers Overseas Chairman and CAE-Eurocâmaras President Renato Pacheco Neto joined the 1st Latin America Eurocâmaras Conference organized by ELAN-Biz in Lima, Peru.
Swedcham also had the opportunity to welcome EU DG Trade Director Helena König, who visited São Paulo in October to meet other Chambers’ representatives and exchange views on the climate of doing business in Brazil as well as hear about trade and investment barriers. Director König also talked about how we intend to engage with Brazil bilaterally and in the EU-Mercosur context. This session also provided an additional possibility to further expand the results of the Business Climate Survey launched by Swedcham among its member companies in Brazil.
Swedcham hosted its 1st EBO Board Meeting on October 28 with the presence of many other binational Chambers, including the German and Portuguese Chambers which are Vice-Chairmen, and also the French Chamber in charge of the Financial Directory. Swedcham reported its Eurocâmaras activities and shared its proposal to organize the EU National Day on May 9.
CAE-Eurocâmaras also celebrated its 15th anniversary on November 19 and took the opportunity to host at Swedcham an International Arbitration roundtable for the exchange of experiences in cross border investment led by Prof. Dr. Carlos Alberto Carmona and other USP Professors, Hermes Marcelo Huck, Paula Forgioni, Floriano Peixoto de Azevedo Marques and Cristiano de Sousa Zanetti, who are top experts in the field of commercial Arbitration.
On November 22, while Chairman Nils Grafström joined the EU-FIESP Sustainability Workshop with EU Ambassador João Cravinho, Eurocâmaras-CAE President Renato Pacheco Neto also joined as keynote speaker a very fruitful Arbitration Discussion 2016 organized by “DiaLAWgue” initiative from the German Chamber of Commerce of Hamburg and São Paulo together with the recently launched European-Latin American Arbitration Association ELArb focusing on bilateral investment between the two markets.
On November 24, Swedcham hosted the MAT – Market Access Teams Meeting with Member State Counselors and also the EU Consular Corps. The discussions were led by EU Delegation Trade Commissioner Nicola Ardito, who also presented his new colleagues Jakob Jakobsen and Alexandre Polack, besides the already known colleagues from the EU Latin America project team (ELAN BIZ) Mercedes Blazquez and Vanessa Tacchi, working for the last six months at Swedcham.
Last but not least, from December 4 to 6, Eurocâmaras-CAE President Pacheco Neto chaired in Seoul the 2016 Korea Regional EBO Worldwide Network of EU Chambers Abroad covering 35 European Business Organizations in five continents. The meeting was also joined by EU Delegation to Korea Trade Commissioner and First Counselor Paolo Caridi, Head of Economic Session and KITA, the Korean International Trade Association, who provided EU Chambers attending its sessions a very complete overview on the five-year period after the Korea-EU Free Trade Agreement went into effect in 2011.
Renato Pacheco e Silva Bacellar Neto is partner at Pacheco Neto Sanden Teisseire Law Firm.
