The year 2022 was a very busy one for Brazil — we not only had the presidential elections but also had to choose the governors and Congress representatives for both the Lower House and the Upper House and the campaigns are usually run throughout the year and consume a lot of energy and attention.
Review of 2022
Anyway, even in this challenging year, there was an opportunity to have already in April a meeting with the president of the Congress, Rodrigo Pacheco. In this meeting, it was discussed in more detail the great and important advantage of working on a legal framework, to make feasible the practice of Islamic banking in Brazil. This visit was put together with a representative of FAMBRAS, the Brazilian Federation of Islamic Associations that has a great interest in this initiative and is leading the approach to the lawmakers, as well as myself.
In such a meeting, it was agreed we would work and present a document with guidelines on how we could work together to have this joint project becoming true. With the help of a group of friendly lawyers, a draft was made and since then we are working on having this project moving, which is not an easy task for such an innovative project.
On a different front, an event was organized by the Federation of Brazilian Banks in partnership with AlBaraka Group, where an online presentation on the basics of Islamic banking was made to associated banks. Ebrahim Elsayed was the panelist and content development coordinator as part of the Albaraka Forum for Islamic Economy. The event was titled ‘The Islamic finance role in developing the world economies, and Brazil in particular’.
This initiative generated the interest of some participants to go deeper into the understanding of the industry and how conventional local banks could partner with Islamic institutions and together offer solutions to the Halal industry not only for trade but also for investments.
Preview of 2023
2023 promises to be even more challenging once Brazil has a new government and a new Congress but the firm interest to continue this process persists and, in this regard, several meetings are being set.
Already in January 2023, the Halal Academy of Brazil, an entity that is part of FAMBRAS and created in 2017 to qualify the workforce of Halal production in the country, is setting up an event to thank and award those involved in teaching and spreading the Islamic culture in the country, where Islamic finance also plays a relevant role.
After Ramadan, at the end of April, other events are also being planned to gather diplomats and government representatives to continue discussing the subject, as well as other important points involving not only Halal production, but also food security in this moment of uncertainty that the whole world is undergoing due to the post-pandemic moment aggravated by the war between Russia and Ukraine.
Two other very relevant events are scheduled to happen in 2023. In August, one more edition of the course ‘The Islamic World’, sponsored by both the Confederation of Agriculture and Livestock of Brazil and FAMBRAS, will happen, and this time will come again with a chapter on Islamic finance on what was not possible in 2022 but was missed by the participants.
September will be the time again to have the paramount event of the Global Halal Business Forum that gathers experts from around the world with face-to-face and online participations. This year, it is intended to have a full panel on Islamic finance with the participation of relevant financial institutions from key Islamic markets to discuss not only the relevance of the industry, but also present some case studies on the development of the industry in non-Islamic countries; this would certainly add a lot of value to the discussions happening in Brazil at this moment.
Conclusion
In conclusion, we can say that 2022, despite the difficulties caused by the COVID-19 pandemic, the war between Russia and Ukraine and the distraction caused by the presidential elections, was positive. This positiveness refers to the continuous development of the knowledge of what the Islamic Industry means in general, and what it could mean to a country that is a successful case in Halal food production and is also a market of more than 200 million people and one of the top economies of the world.
Similarly, 2023 will be even more promising, considering that a new government will assume the great challenges of boosting economic growth, repositioning the country as a relevant player in the achievement of a more sustainable world and keeping its importance as one of the most important food producers in the world.
In all of these targets, the Islamic financial industry can add value and help, not only by supporting Halal food production but also supporting investments in the industry. To continue its path of evolution, Brazil needs and counts on the involvement of the best players of the Islamic banking industry worldwide.
Angela Martins is the chief representative of the Brazil Representative Office of First Abu Dhabi Bank. She can be contacted at [email protected].