MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

Lula wants partnerships with private companies in developments to come

The president of any country must attract foreign capital by offering credibility and political, social, and legal stability, Lula argued

Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva Monday told a group of businessmen in the Portuguese city of Porto that his country was not willing to sell any public company but it would nevertheless welcome private entrepreneurship “to partner with us in what we need to create anew.”

Lula arrived in Portugal last Saturday and will leave for Madrid on Tuesday on his first European tour since taking office for the third time in his life on Jan. 1.

During the event, ”an agreement was signed between the Brazilian Export and Investment Promotion Agency (Apex) and the Portuguese Agency for Investment and Foreign Trade (AICEP),“ according to a statement from the Brazilian government. The agreement seeks to strengthen ”the economic cooperation between our countries and the promotion of small and medium-sized companies.“

”Brazil definitely wants to build partnership policies, we do not want hegemonic relations with anyone. We don't have to have hegemony just because we are big,” Lula told some 200 Portuguese and Brazilian businessmen. He added that the president of any country must attract foreign capital by offering credibility and political, social, and legal stability.

The Brazilian government, he said, is betting on the green hydrogen industry in the northeast of the country and on the prospect of establishing partnerships with the whole world in the construction of wind, biomass, and solar power plants.

During his stay in Portugal, Lula also visited the Gerais Aeronautical Material Offices (OGMA) “to get to know the new partnership between Embraer and OGMA, the Super Tucano aircraft.” The Brazilian president landed at the facilities located in Alverca, a district of Lisbon, aboard a KC-390, which was incorporated into the Portuguese Air Force.

Embraer and Portugal's Engineering and Product Development Center (CEiiA), Empordef Information Technologies (ETI), GMV, and the General Aeronautical Material Workshops (OGMA) signed a memorandum of understanding on Monday on the production of military aircraft in Europe. The signing of the agreement took place in the presence of Lula and Portuguese Prime Minister António Costa.

“Today, with the signing of this memorandum of understanding, we take another important step in the continued development of technologies related to the A-29 Super Tucano,” said Embraer Defense & Security president and CEO João Bosco da Costa Júnior. He added that the new version of the aircraft will be designed to meet the operational needs of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO).